10 Ways To Make Your Writing Grab the Reader

These days every blogger has 10 rules, 10 lessons, 10 ways, or 10 excuses…  Who am I to buck the trend?

Here are 10 rules I use in writing Fiction:

1. Your characters may not know how to spell (when writing), but they don’t misspell spoken words.  Writing in dialect is tricky.  If you’re not sure, don’t do it.
2. Misspellings have a place, but it is ONLY if you are showing something a character writes.
3. Stay away from present tense.  It is tricky and hard to keep up.  One error and your credibility is gone.
4. Dialogue should sound like speaking, not like writing.  But it can’t be as boring as most conversations.
5. Yes, Virginia, the first sentence of your novel IS very important.
6. Starting your story with a long narrative is an excellent way to bore and chase your reader away.  Put some action on the first page.  Better still, put some action in the first sentence.
7. If nothing happens that forwards the story while your character is en route to work, simply say, “he drove to work”.  Describing the mundane is a pace killer.
8. Action scenes: consider short paragraphs, short sentences, simple direct words.
9. Description of a setting helps to create the mood, but don’t kill the pace of your work by dragging it out.
10. Whenever you read a list of 10 rules for writing, only take the rules that work for you.

Tagged as: 10 Rules, 10 Tips, 10 Ways, Fiction, Writing