Category: Writing Tips

Writing Humor

Writing Tips

A woman in sunglasses laughs on the right side of the image and the left has the post title, writing humor,.

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

One thing that I love about writing cozy mysteries is the ability to integrate humor into the stories.

The amount of humor varies. I still somewhat regret writing A Body at Book Club which has a scene in which I actually laughed out loud while writing (startling the cats and dog around me). Since then, almost every book has at least one customer review that says: “It’s okay. Not as funny as A Body at Book Club.”

I’ve noticed that humor comes easier as a series continues and I know the characters better and better. I think that’s because my humor is all character-based and the set-up for a humorous scene becomes easy when the readers and I know the characters very well. Running gags can be particularly effective over the course of a series. Continue reading

Mirroring a Book’s Beginning at its Ending

Writing Tips

A car's rear view mirror is shown as the driver drives into a sunset. The post's title, "Mirroring a Story's Beginning at Its Ending" is superimposed on the left.

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Many writers have a hard time with beginning and ending their books. I’ve never had much trouble starting a book (I rarely vary from starting with dialogue between two important characters), but endings I really used to struggle with.

If you’re like me, there’s a technique you could try to see if it makes your book’s ending stronger.  It’s a reflective, or mirroring technique.  The idea is to subtly remind the reader at the book’s close of a similar scene at the beginning of the book. It helps lend a full-circle feel to a story and can offer a satisfying ending for readers and a sense of closure.

I saw an interesting tweet recently from Open Culture.  They featured a supercut by Jacob T. Swinney of the first and final frames of 55 different films, shown side by side. Many of the films had reflective endings–and the ones that resonates the most with me did.

For my books, I use it mainly to re-establish order at the end of the book.  The idea behind these gentle mysteries is to have an idyll at the beginning of the book. Someone destroys the idyll via murders but, by the end, justice is served and peace is restored again. It’s very tidy. The loose ends are tied up.  My characters may be in the kitchen eating tomato sandwiches at the beginnings and ends of the story.  This technique can signify that, although the protagonist has overcome all sorts of trouble and conflict, some things remain, comfortingly, the same.

But you can get fancy with this technique, and expand it into other areas of your story.  Fantasy writer Janice Hardy has some great ideas in this post on working other mirroring techniques into your story. As she explains the role of these types of mirrors:

Mirrors aren’t just copies, but ideas and themes reflected in characters and situations around the protagonist. Sometimes they match the protagonist’s emotions or choices, other times they reflect the opposite, but they deepen the story by allowing the protagonist (and reader) to “experience” other potential outcomes without derailing the story. Stakes become more real when we see them occur, and the right mirror can do a world of foreshadowing and raise the tension.

Do you use mirroring techniques in your stories?  For endings, or in other ways?  As a reader, is this something you notice or find satisfying?

Using mirroring techniques in a story: Click To Tweet

Photo via Visualhunt

Twitterific Writing Links

Twitterific, Writing Tips

Bluebird with beak open and 'Twitterific Writing Links' by ElizabethSCraig superimposed on the image

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

A weekly roundup of the best writing links from around the web.

Twitterific writing links are fed into the Writer’s Knowledge Base search engine (developed by writer and software engineer Mike Fleming) which has over 40,000 free articles on writing related topics. It’s the search engine for writers.

Have you visited the WKB lately?  Check out the new redesign where you can browse by category, and see the character and location name generators! 

Happy Easter to all who observe it. I’m going to be taking the next week off to spend some time with family and catch up on some writing. See you next Sunday!

Continue reading

Subscribe to Writing Tips Via Email

Writing Tips

by Mike Fleming, @Hiveword

In my previous post about changes to the Writer’s Knowledge Base (WKB) I mentioned that a future feature would be the possibility of receiving emails brimming with writing links on a daily or weekly basis. Well, that future is now!

As are probably well aware, every day Elizabeth tweets links to great articles on writing. Every Sunday you can get the week’s worth of links via her Twitterific blog post. You can also search for these articles or browse them by category on the WKB. And now, you can also have them delivered right to your inbox on a daily or weekly basis.

To get these emails you’ll need a free Hiveword account so that the system can remember your settings. If you are not familiar with Hiveword it hosts the WKB but also has other tools for writers such as a novel organizer and name generators. Once you are signed in, click the Writer’s Knowledge Base logo and then click Categorized Emails. Or, save a few steps and just click here when you are signed in.Continue reading

How Flash Fiction Can Make You a Better Writer (and Where to Find It)

Uncategorized, Writing Tips

by Fred Johnson,  @FredBobJohn

In our non-stop world of tweets, tags, and text messages, it’s often difficult to find the time and motivation to sit down and read (let alone write!) a full-length novel. Even short stories can fall flat in terms of their ability to reflect the pure speed and transience of modern life.

Enter flash fiction. This relatively modern form describes very short fiction, with pieces normally clocking it at below a thousand words. With so few words to play with, writers of flash fiction have to cram meaning and emotion into as few words as possible. The most famous example is commonly attributed to Ernest Hemingway and is only six words long:

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

Powerful stuff indeed. But here’s the kicker: flash fiction, beyond being a pleasure to read, can make you a better writer, no matter what you’re writing.

This is because flash fiction is all about using every last word and wasting no space whatsoever, which is an incredibly important skill for a writer to cultivate. Learning the value of brevity can help you get better, whether you’re writing short stories, novels, articles, blog posts, reviews, commercial copy… anything really.

Even better, flash fiction takes very little time to read and write. You can embrace brevity and write flash fiction during your break at work, on the bus, or before you go to bed. Better still, it can be a great way to test out ideas or to dip a toe into a different genre–if one piece doesn’t work, it’s no big deal, but if another does, you can develop that piece and use it as the foundation for a longer text.

With all this in mind, here are some great platforms and communities to help encourage you, give you some inspiration, and provide some top-notch reading material.Continue reading

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