✍️ Tandem Services Coaching and Editing: Craft Stronger Stories Now
Empowering you to write the stories of your heart and increasing your impact with a book. Helpful information for your writing career each month In this issue:
Craft: 5 common errors I see in writingThis is not a post about cats. Well, maybe it is. A little. I don’t know about you but I’ve never seen a cat with six-pack abs. Every cat I know has a soft, flabby belly. We had a cat growing up that we called Flabby Tabby. How does that relate to writing? I’ve been a book coach, editor, and author for over 20 years. And I find the same types of problems crop up over and over. A lot of flabby bellies in writing, if you will. So let’s discuss them here so you can look for them in your own writing and weed them out. 1. Point of ViewMost people don’t realize how powerful POV is. When we are truly inside your character’s skin and brain, and not just watching him or her, we develop that deep emotional connection that makes for a great reading experience. If readers love your characters, they’ll follow them anywhere, even through a bad plot. POV is only what the character whose head you are in can see, feel, think, know, etc. It is the key component in creating an emotional experience, which is the standard we measure our story by. Getting POV correct makes a huge difference in the emotional experience for your reader. What I find is that because we watch TV and movies, we muddle POV. When you watch a TV show or a movie, they are showing you the person’s face as they talk or react. When the director wants us to know what the heroine is feeling, he shows us her face, actions, and dialogue. Writing is very different from video. We need to crawl inside the hero’s skin. When we do that, we don’t see their eyes or their faces. Put yourself in the scene as your character. What are you thinking, feeling? What are you doing with your body? What things are your five senses picking up? Show what it’s like to be that person from deep inside of them, not by showing us from the outside. 2. Do Double DutyAnother big mistake I see is that writers fail to make every action, thought, and word do more than just convey one piece of information. Use each as an opportunity to show emotion or convey something to us about your character’s personality. For example, a character simply crossing the room to pick up her phone can tell us a lot. Don’t just tell us she went over and got her phone. Did she stalk? Did she drag her feet? Did she nearly skip? See how each one shows us her mood as well as showing us what she’s doing? And for the phone call. Do her actions convey dread? Excitement? Anger? Make each bit do double and triple duty and you won’t have the dreaded flab that must be cut. 3. Cut the FlabWhen we read about what your character is doing (or has done) we expect it to mean something. If you tell us she went to the grocery store before going home, there should be a reason I need to know that. Did someone see her there? Did she need to avoid someone so she forgot the milk? Did that errand delay her arrival at home so she missed being there when the burglar broke in? Just as your words need to do double duty, so do any actions that either appear on stage or are summarized in narrative. Keep asking yourself why we need to know this. And, what else can this action tell us? 4. Where to BeginOne of the most frequent errors I see is that writers don’t know where to start their story. That also applies to scenes. I often see scenes that flounder a bit in their beginning, giving us too much info about how we got here. Readers don’t need a lot of set up. Regardless if you’re a plotter or a seat-of-your-pants writer, you need to know what you want to accomplish in each scene. Scenes can take place close together or farther apart in time, but they should only contain actions that move your story forward. If you’re writing a romance and the hero and heroine haven’t spoken in two weeks, you don’t need to spend a lot of time in your next scene explaining what they’ve been doing or why (unless it directly relates to the plot or subplot). You can easily say something like, “After not hearing from John for two weeks Jane was surprised to see his number pop up on her phone.” You could change “surprised” to something that might more closely convey her feelings, like annoyed, irritated, elated, angry, miffed. But we don’t need a long explanation, just jump into the action. When in doubt, start with the action and add any explanation or transition later if you really need to. 5. When It’s Over, It’s OverAnd then when the purpose of the scene is over, end it. It’s much better to leave your readers wanting more than to linger too long in the scene. Think about the purpose (or better, purposes) of each scene. How does it move the plot forward? How does it deepen characterization? What questions does it raise that will keep the reader turning pages? When that’s done, your scene is done. The problem is that, as writers, we love our characters. They live in our heads; they are our friends. We want to hang out with them and spend time with them. And that’s fine, but do it elsewhere if it’s making your story flabby. Use these tips to tighten up your writing, whether it’s for a contest or not. And your scenes won’t look as flabby as a cat’s belly. Want to go deeper?I created a YouTube playlist where marketing expert Stephanie Feger and I discuss each of these questions in detail on our Beyond the Page series. You can find it here: YouTube: 5 Questions You Must Answer Career: Mini BlueprintNot sure what your book needs next? A lot of writers get stuck—not because they aren’t talented, but because they can’t see what’s working, what isn’t, and what to tackle first. That’s exactly what the mini blueprint session is designed to solve. The mini blueprint is a high-level framework for your book. Just the process of filling it out often reveals where your plot has holes or sags. Once you’ve completed it, you’ll return it to me and we’ll schedule a 90-minute coaching call to dig into your book’s strengths and weaknesses together. You’ll walk away with a clear, prioritized plan for moving forward — so you’re not wasting months on revisions that don’t matter. The mini blueprint session is $595 and includes the blueprint framework plus a full 90-minute one-on-one coaching call. Whether you’re mid-draft, stuck in revisions, or trying to decide if your manuscript is ready for a developmental edit, this session will give you clarity and a concrete path forward. Reply to this email to get your mini blueprint and get started today. Commerce: Break the Feast or Famine Cycle MasterclassIn the creative world, the feast or famine cycle shows up a lot. So what does it take to shift from this constant ebb and flow to a place of consistency, predictability and stability without losing the passion from your work? In this free online session, she will share how to:
You can join from wherever you are. Make sure to bring a coffee and a notebook. If you can’t make it, you’ll get an email with a link to a replay. Sign up here There’s a dropdown menu that you can use to tell her I sent you (I’m all the way at the bottom!) . Where you can find meI’m teaching at the Author Learning Center March 10 at 1:30 ET on Start Your Story Right: The Five Foundational Questions You Need to Answer Before Writing Anything. Sign up here: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/rt/816666013440730200 I’ve been on a couple of podcasts recently talking about how to turn what you know into a book. 🎙️ The Thoughtful Entrepreneur with Josh Elledge: Proven Strategies for Entrepreneurs to Write a Transformative Book 🎙️ Business Roundtable with Dave Carr: How to Turn Your Expertise into a Book 📺 Tandem Services has a YouTube page! Check it out at YouTube.com/@TandemServices Want personalized writing advice? Share a writing, editing, or publishing hurdle you have faced or a question you have and I will email you an autographed copy of Eat the Elephant: How to Write (and Finish!) Your Book One Bite at a Time and send you a personalized five-minute video. Click here to find out more. Writing quoteWriting is the painting of the voice. — Voltaire Pressing on! Jennifer PS—You should assume any link in this Update is an affiliate link. It costs you nothing more but gives me a few pennies. 🙂 |
