Category: Wordsmithing


The Emotional Thesaurus: A Must-Have for Any Fiction Author

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March 15, 2024

Lately, I’ve been running into authors who don’t know about this book, much less its ‘sequels,’ and it’s more than worth doing a quick post on the topic. I can state without any reservation that if you do not have a copy of The Emotional Thesaurus, you are cheating yourself. There is no other single book that you can buy that will help your writing more; and yes, that includes that other book you were just thinking of, whatever it was.

The Emotional Thesaurus is a book that does exactly what it sounds like, only more so. It gives you synonyms for different emotional states, which by itself is extraordinarily useful. How many times have you had to stop to figure out how to describe what a character was feeling? But it goes far, far deeper, giving you body language, internal effects, and behavior associated with each emotion.

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The Four Aspects of a Good Prologue

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March 8, 2024

One of the most common questions I get from new authors is whether using a prologue is a good choice for a particular novel. The short answer is that it depends, but probably not.

That’s not to say that prologues can’t be good; actually, some of my favorite books have prologues, and some even benefit from them. However, I usually steer authors — especially new and upcoming authors — away from using prologues, because generally they don’t add anything to the story that the reader will appreciate. I suspect the main reason why prologues are so attractive is that many of the best books out there, the ones that shaped our perception of good stories, use prologues. Some of them even benefited from it.

Unfortunately, prologues have a reputation as extended infodumps, and because of that most readers will normally skip over a prologue. Thanks to that, a prologue typically serves as a bad introduction to your story. There are, however, some ways to judge whether your prologue can stand on its own.

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How to Write a Novel in Three Months

Filed under: Wordsmithing, Writing Tips — 1 Comment
January 28, 2016

Yes, that’s right. I’m going to give you the secret, handed down from the writing gods. It is the secret you have climbed this mountain to find, young supplicant, through the freezing glaciers, without climbing gear and bearing a rare flower in your teeth, just to prove your worthiness.

The secret is . . . that there is no secret. The secret is that you have to put in the effort. The secret is that you can have all the great ideas you want; but unless you practice your craft, unless you write and write and write, unless you try and fail and learn from the experience, unless you do what everyone learning any craft must do since the dawn of the ages, you will never write that novel.

Inspiration

But that’s not the title of this blog post. The reason why you’re reading this is because you’re asking “Okay, Mr. Bowman, how do I write a novel in three months? Just sit down and write? Oh, is that all?” Continue reading →

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Write or Wrong? Soulless, by Gail Carriger

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April 16, 2013

Four things you can learn about writing from Soulless:

  1. Regency/Victorian stylings. If you want the feel of 19th century England, it’s obvious where to go: Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and other authors who lived in that period. Sometimes, though, it’s refreshing to look at someone taking that period and messing around with it, allowing you to see what’s essential and what isn’t. If inserting vampires, werewolves, and ghosts into everyday Victorian society isn’t “messing around with it,” I don’t know what is. 
  2. Sexual humor without vulgarity. It’s a fine line between joking about sex and being crude. There is a lot of sexual humor in this book, but it is funniest when couched in Victorian speech patterns and indirect phrasing. See what you find funniest, and ask yourself why.
  3. Floating perspective. There’s a reason why floating perspective is frowned on in modern fiction: it can get hard to keep track of which person you’re supposed to identify with. It works in Soulless mainly because the literature of the real-life period did it; but to make it work, you have to avoid getting too deep into one character’s perspective before shifting into another’s. Pay attention to where the POV shifts in the middle of a scene, and why Carriger keeps it from being jarring.
  4. Avoid infodumping. Read the first chapter and identify the information that is just placed there before it’s truly needed. Compare this to other parts of the book where information is not given so quickly. How would you rewrite the first chapter to give a steadier, more gentle flow for information? 
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I’m Going to Tug at Your Heartstrings

Filed under: Characters, Editing, News and Updates, Plots, Plugs and Promotions, Publishing, Recommended Reading, Resources, Reviews, Wordsmithing, Worldbuilding, Writing Tips — Leave a comment
April 10, 2013

There are books on my shelf written by a man with two names. Those names are David Wolverton and David Farland.  Why he publishes under two names is irrelevant to this post. What is relevant are these facts:

  1. He’s good.
  2. He’s entertaining.
  3. He’s an excellent teacher.
  4. His son is currently in the hospital, fighting for his life.

Yeah. Heartstrings are tugging. Continue reading →

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How Much Description to Use?

Filed under: Tools and Techniques, Wordsmithing — Leave a comment
January 18, 2013

Ninja fan Olivia B. asks:

“What are the most common errors in writing descriptions? How do we avoid them?”

Excellent question! In fact, this subject is one of the major areas that an amateur author struggles with, because it goes right to the heart of the actual act of storytelling itself. Continue reading →

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