Links to Jodie Renner’s Top Craft of Writing Posts

at The Kill Zone blog and also links to some of Jodie's most popular articles on this blog. (below)

*Stay tuned - I will arrange these and more of my blog posts on writing compelling fiction by topic, one of these days!

by Jodie Renner, editor and author

I started guest blogging at The Kill Zone blog ("Insider perspectives from top mystery and thriller writers") in November 2012, then officially joined the team in early October 2013. That was the year The Kill Zone blog first received the Writer's Digest Award for "101 Best Websites for Writers." I like to think my popular craft of writing posts helped us attain that award, which we've also received for 2014 and 2015.

Due to changes in my own life, including a move across the country and shifting my personal focus, I reluctantly decided to step down from The Kill Zone, and my last post as part of the team at TKZ was on June 1, 2015. It was a lot of fun and a real honor to be part of the talented team at TKZ during those few years, and I was told my contributions, including setting up the TKZ Library, helped expand the readership of the blog. 

I was also pleased to have brought in to TKZ as guest bloggers several friends who are bestselling authors, including Robert Dugoni, Steven James, Allison Brennan, LJ Sellers, and Allan Leverone, as well as award-winning blogger and humorous fiction writer, Anne R. Allen.

LINKS TO MANY OF JODIE RENNER’S CRAFT OF WRITING POSTS ON THE KILL ZONE BLOG:

~ 15 Questions for Your Beta Readers – And to Focus Your Own Revisions
…To avoid generic (and generally useless) responses like “I liked it,” “It was good,” or “It was okay,” it’s best to guide your volunteer readers with specific questions.

~ 12 Essential Steps from Story Idea to Publish-Ready Novel
… If you want your novel, novella, or short story to intrigue readers and garner great reviews, use these 12 steps to guide you along at each phase of the process: ...

~ Don’t Stop the Story to Introduce Each Character
Imagine you’ve just met someone for the first time, and after saying hello, they corral you and go into a long monologue about their childhood, upbringing, education, careers, relationships, plans, etc. You keep nodding as you glance around furtively, trying to figure out how to extricate yourself from this self-centered boor. You don’t even know this person, so why would you care about all these details at this point?

~ Writing Tense Action Scenes
When your characters are running for their lives, it’s time to write tight and leave out a lot of description, especially little insignificant details about their surroundings. Characters on the run don’t have time to admire the scenery or décor, start musing about a moment in the past, or have great long thoughts or discussions. Their adrenaline is pumping and all they’re thinking of is survival – theirs and/or someone else’s.

~ Impart Info with Attitude – Strategies for Turning Impersonal Info Dumps into Compelling Copy
As a freelance fiction editor, I find that military personnel, professionals, academics, police officers, and others who are used to imparting factual information in objective, detached, bias-free ways often need a lot of coaching in loosening up their language and adding attitude and emotions to create a captivating story world. Really need those facts in there? Rewrite with attitude!

~ Checklist for Adding Suspense and Intrigue to Your Story
Here’s a handy checklist for ratcheting up the tension and suspense of your novel or short story. Use as many of these elements and devices as possible to increase the “wow” factor of your fiction.

~ Phrasing for Immediacy and Power
Have you ever been engrossed in a novel, reading along, when you hit a blip that made you go “huh?” or “why?” for a nanosecond? Then you had to reread the sentence to figure out what’s going on? Often, it’s because actions are written in a jumbled-up or reversed order, rather than the order they occurred. Do this too often, and your readers will start getting annoyed.

~ Immerse Your Readers with Sensory Details
In order for your story and characters to come to life on the page, your readers need to be able see what the main character is seeing, hear what he’s hearing, and smell, taste and feel along with him.

~ 10 Ways to Add Depth to Your Scenes
… Besides advancing the storyline, scenes should: reveal and deepen characters and their relationships; show setting details; provide any necessary background info (in a natural way, organic to the story); add tension and conflict; hint at dangers and intrigue to come; and generally enhance the overall tone and mood of your story.

~ Using Thought-Reactions to Add Attitude & Immediacy
… Showing your character’s immediate thought-reactions is a great way to let the readers in on what your character is really thinking about what’s going on, how they’re reacting inside, often in contrast to how they’re acting outwardly.

~ Nail it with Just the Right Word
To set the mood of a scene in your story, bring the characters to life, and engage readers in their world and their plight, it’s critical to choose just the right nuance of meaning to fit the character, action, and situation.

~ Looking for an editor? Check them out very carefully!
An incident happened to me recently that got me thinking about all the pitfalls that aspiring authors face today when seeking professional assistance to get their books polished and ready to self-publish or send to agents.

~ Tips for Loosening up Your Writing
As a freelance editor, I’ve received fiction manuscripts from lots of professionals, and for many of these clients, whose report-writing skills are well-researched, accurate and precise, my editing often focuses on helping them relax their overly correct writing style.

~ How to save a bundle on editing costs – without sacrificing quality
… below you’ll find lots of advice for significantly reducing your editing costs, with additional links at the end to concrete tips for approaching the revision process and for reducing your word count without losing any of the good stuff. 

~ Pick up the Pace for a Real Page-Turner
… Today’s readers have shorter attention spans and so many more books to choose from. Most of them/us don’t have the time or patience for the lengthy descriptive passages, long, convoluted “literary” sentences, detailed technical explanations, author asides, soap-boxing, or the leisurely pacing of fiction of 100 years ago.

~ 12 Tips for Writing Blog Posts That Get Noticed
Blogging is a great way to build a community feeling, connect with readers and writers, and get your books noticed. …But if you’re just getting started in the world of blogging and want to build a following, it’s all about offering the readers value in an open, accessible style and format.

~ 25 Tips for Writing a Winning Short Story
Writing short stories is a great way to test the waters of fiction without making a huge commitment, or to experiment with different genres, characters, settings, and voices. And due to the rise in e-books and e-magazines, length is no longer an issue for publication, so there’s a growing market for short fiction.

~ Fire up Your Fiction with Foreshadowing
… Foreshadowing is about sprinkling in subtle little hints and clues as you go along about possible revelations, complications, and trouble to come. It incites curiosity, anticipation, and worry in the readers, which is exactly what you want.

~ POV 101: Get into Your Protagonist’s Head and Stay There

~ POV 102 – How to Avoid Head-Hopping 

~ POV 103 – Engage Your Readers with Deep Point of View

~ Just the Right Word is Only a Click Away
How are your word usage and spelling skills? Try this quiz to find out.  …

~ Tricks and Tips for Catching All Those Little Typos in Your Own Work
Tips for fooling your brain into thinking your story is something new, something you need to read critically and revise ruthlessly before it reaches the demanding eyes of a literary agent, acquiring editor, contest judge, or picky reviewer.

~ Don’t Muddle Your Message
… Wordiness muddles your message, slows down the momentum, and drags an anchor through the forward movement of your story. It also reduces tension, anticipation, and intrigue, all essential for keeping readers glued to your book.

~ How to Reach More Readers with Your Writing
15 tips for clear, concise, powerful writing

~ Make Sure Your Characters Act in Character
Do your characters’ decisions and actions seem realistic and authentic?

~ Create a Fascinating, Believable Antagonist
For a riveting story, be sure to challenge your hero – or heroine – to the max.

~ How are short stories evaluated for publication or awards?
What are some of the common criteria used by publications and contests when evaluating short story submissions?

~ Critical Scenes Need Nail-Biting Details
… for significant scenes where your character is trying to escape confinement or otherwise fight for his life, be sure you don’t skip over the details. If it’s a life-or-death moment, show every tiny movement, thought, and action.

AND SOME POPULAR POSTS FROM THIS BLOG:

Here are links to a few of the most popular blog posts from this blog, Resources for Writers. Click on the title to go to the article.

~ SHOW, DON'T TELL

~ REVISE FOR SUCCESS: A Stress-Free, Concrete Plan of Action for Revising, Editing, and Polishing Your Novel.

~ 12 Dos and Don'ts for a Riveting Opening

~ Basic Formatting of Your Manuscript (Formatting 101)
How to format your manuscript before sending it to an editor or publishing.

~ How to Create Workable Scene Outlines for Your Novel 
Use the outlines below to help you organize your scenes and decide if any of them need to be moved, revised, amped up, or cut.

~ A Checklist for Submitting Your Short Story to Anthologies and Contests

~ Bring Your Characters to Life by Showing Their Reactions

~ How and When to Use Hyphens, Dashes, & Ellipses

~ Writers' Conferences and Book Festivals in North America
Links to more than 150 conferences and book festivals, ordered by date. (over 38,000 page views since January 2015)

~ Pros, Cons, and Steps for Publishing Your Own Book on Amazon

~ Dialogue Nuts and Bolts
The basics of writing dialogue in fiction: paragraphing, punctuation, capitalization, etc.

~ Tips for Writing Effective Dialogue

~ Every Scene Needs Tension and a Change

~ How to Slash Your Word Cut by 20-40% - Without losing any of the good stuff!

~ 21 Tips for Creating a Compelling Short Story

~ 33 Tips for Creating a Short Story Worthy of Contests, Magazines, and Anthologies

~ Style Blunders in Fiction - an oldie but goodie

~ Creating Compelling Characters - another oldie but goodie (This one is from my pre-writing days, so collected advice from writing "gurus", not me.)

~ Tips for Creating Sentences That Flow

Some Common Grammar Gaffes, Part I - who vs that; that vs which; caps

Some Common Grammar Gaffes, Part II - past perfect; misplaced modifiers

Some Common Grammar Gaffes, Part III - lay vs lie; I vs me

To sign up to receive Jodie Renner's sporadic (3-6 times per year) newsletter with links to top craft-of-writing articles and other resources for writers, please click HERE.

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor, workshop presenter, judge for fiction contests, and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: Captivate Your Readers,   Fire up Your Fiction, and  Writing a Killer Thriller. She has also published two clickable time-saving e-resources to date: Quick Clicks: Spelling List and Quick Clicks: Word Usage. Jodie recently organized and edited two anthologies for charity: a BC-wide anthology of stories and poetry for Doctors Without Borders, called Voices from the Valleys, and Childhood Regained – Stories of Hope for Asian Child Workers, created to help reduce child labor in Asia. You can find Jodie at www.JodieRenner.com, www.JodieRennerEditing.com, and on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Click HERE to sign up for Jodie’s occasional newsletter.
 

A Candid Conversation with Editor & Author Jodie Renner

Exciting news!

 

SOUTHERN WRITERS MAGAZINE has interviewed me in its Sept./Oct. 2013 issue, just out!

You can purchase a subscription or single issues (print or electronic) on their website at www.SouthernWritersMagazine.com. 

 

In the interview, Jodie answers these questions and more:

   - What common mistakes do you observe writers making?

   - What are the most confusing areas for a fiction writer?

   - What is the best way for the writer to fix them?

   - What would be your advice to anyone who was trying to write a "killer thriller" or any other fast-paced fiction that sells?

   - As an editor, describe your ideal client.


Other writers featured in the September issue include:

- Davis Bunn
- Cassandra King
- Pamela Binnings Ewen

Topics in this issue include:

- Book Signing Success
- Create a Visual Tour
- Revelations from a Retreat
- Who has Time to Be a Writer? You do!
- What if Someone Steals Your Idea?
- Why You Need a Book Proposal

To subscribe to this excellent magazine full of great tips for writers and receive your issues either online or on high-quality paper in full color in the mail, click on this link.  

 http://www.southernwritersmagazine.com/subscribe.html

ONE YEAR ONLINE SUBSCRIPTION
September 2013 thru August 2014
$29.99 (6 issues)
Plus: Free access to promote on Mic Nite, Take Five and Must Read TV

To subscribe to Jodie’s Resources for Writers newsletter (which is published about 4-10 times a year), please click on the link below and fill out the form. Your privacy is completely assured, you won’t receive any spam, ever, and you can unsubscribe any time.  Thanks! 

http://eepurl.com/C9dKD

 

Jodie Renner, a freelance fiction editor specializing in thrillers and other fast-paced fiction, has published two books to date in her series, An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction:   WRITING A KILLER THRILLER and STYLE THAT SIZZLES & PACING FOR POWER (Silver Medal winner, FAPA Book Awards), both available in e-book and trade paperback.

For more info, please visit Jodie’s author website or editor website, or find her on Facebook or Twitter.

JAMES FREY KNOWS HOW TO WRITE A DAMN GOOD THRILLER

Just finished an excellent book by James N. Frey called How to Write a Damn Good Thriller – A Step-by-Step Guide for Novelists and Screenwriters. I highly recommend this book for anyone who’s interested in writing thrillers, romantic suspense, crime fiction, or any other kind of fiction, for that matter.
James concludes with some great advice:

“When you start constructing your thriller, it will help a great deal if you have the right attitude. […] To write a damn good thriller, you need a killer attitude. I suggest you make a pledge to yourself to do the following: [I’m reproducing some of Frey’s key points here.]

• Commit yourself to creating strong conflicts in every line of every scene.

• Decide you will have fresh, snappy dialogue and not a single line of conversation.

• Decide to write quickly when drafting. Fast is golden.

• Commit yourself to this: You will not have any major characters that are bland and colorless. They will all be dramatic types, theatrical, driven, larger than life, clever.

• Have your characters in terrible trouble right from the beginning, and never let them get free of terrible trouble until the climax.

• Have powerful story questions operating at all times.

• End each scene or section of dramatic narrative with a bridge, a story question to carry the reader to the next one.

• Keep the clock ticking and the excitement mounting right to the climactic moment.”

And the tips I left out are excellent, too! As is the advice given throughout this interesting and informative book. Now I’m going to look for How to Write a Damn Good Novel (I & II), How to Write a Damn Good Mystery, and finally, The Key – How to Write Damn Good Fiction Using the Power of Myth, all by the same author.

Thanks for your inspirational and practical tips, James! And thanks for giving me permission to pass on some of your damn good ideas to my blog followers and editing clients!

James N. Frey, http://www.jamesnfrey.com/
"The Best Damn Creative Workshops on Planet Earth"

James N. Frey is an internationally acclaimed creative writing teacher and workshop leader. Many participants of his workshops have gone on to publish with major New York houses and receive solid advances (as high as $2 million) and much critical acclaim.

Jodie Renner is a freelance editor specializing in thrillers, mysteries and other crime fiction, as well as YA, mainstream, and historical fiction. Jodie’s craft-of-fiction articles appear on 6 different blogs. For more information on Jodie's editing services, please visit her website at www.JodieRennerEditing.com.

Jodie's 4-page, 10,000-word e-booklet, Writing a Killer Thriller - An Editor's Guide to Writing Powerful Fiction, is only $0.99 for your Kindle or on PDF.

POINT OF VIEW - HEAD-HOPPING

Deep Point of View or How to Avoid Head-Hopping      

by Jodie Renner, editor and author, www.JodieRenner.com

The issue of point of view (POV) or viewpoint can be a difficult one for new novelists to get a handle on, but it simply refers to the character through whose perspective the story events are told. We see, hear, smell, feel and experience events as that character would—with no additional information provided “from above” by the author.

In other words, if you’re writing a romance, and you’re in the heroine’s point of view (which you should be most of the time, as it’s her story) you’re not going to mention her blue eyes or long, blond hair unless she’s looking at herself in a mirror – and that one’s been overdone. (Besides, how many of us consciously think about our eye or hair color when we’re looking in the mirror?) At this point in the story, you’re seeing the world through the heroine’s eyes, so you see and hear only what she would see and hear. If she’s talking to someone else, you’re probably not going to mention her freckles or her tousled hair, unless she’s wondering if she looks okay. (Or you could have her sister, bff or the hero mention them.)

Need to tell what your hero is thinking in the middle of a scene that’s in the POV of your heroine? Tell your readers this by what the heroine is perceiving: his facial expressions, movements, attitude, body language, tone of voice and what he says—or leaves out.

As Jack M. Bickham says, “You’ll never have problems with the technique of viewpoint again if you simply follow this advice: “Figure out whose story it is. Get inside that character—and stay there.” Of course, you don’t have to stay in your protagonist’s point of view for the whole story, but well over half the story should be from the main character’s POV, so that the reader can identify with him/her and begin to care what happens to him/her.

As Bickham explains, “I’m sure you realize why fiction is told from a viewpoint, a character inside the story. It’s because each of us lives our real life from a single viewpoint – our own – and none other, ever. The fiction writer wants her story to be as convincing and lifelike as possible. So she sets things up so that readers will experience the story just like they experience real life: from one viewpoint inside the action.”

If your fiction is to be effective and your lead character is to come alive and matter to the reader, you’ll need to accomplish this by showing all the action from inside the head and heart – the thoughts, senses and emotions – of the person you have chosen as the viewpoint character.

To quote Bickham again, “In a novel, there may be several viewpoints, but one must clearly dominate… It’s a fatal error to let your viewpoint jump around from character to character, with no viewpoint clearly dominating…. To put this in other words: even in a novel of 100,000 words, well over 50 percent – probably closer to 70 percent – should be clearly and rigidly in the viewpoint of the main character. That character’s thoughts, feelings, perceptions and intentions should unmistakably dominate the action.”

So, in order to draw the reader in and grab him emotionally, every story must have a clearly dominant viewpoint character. When we see the story through his eyes, reacting as he does, it’s like we’re in the story.

But how do we as authors go about this? Let’s suppose you’re writing a story about Jason, and you have decided that he is the viewpoint character. How do you make sure that your handling of his viewpoint is as powerful as it can possibly be?

The first thing you need to do is imagine the setting, people and events as they would be perceived by Jason, and only by him. As you write the story, you the writer must become Jason. You see what he sees, and nothing more. You know what he knows, and nothing more. When Jason walks into a room, for example, you do not imagine how the room looks from some god-like authorial stance high above the room, or as a movie camera might see it; you see it only as Jason sees it, walking in.

And of course include his reactions to the other people in the room. Show Jason’s feelings (and only his) about what and who he’s seeing, and his reactions to the situation. Instead of saying “the room was stuffy,” say “Jason felt the stuffy heat of the room close around him.” By using words like “Jason felt” and “he knew,” you’re helping the reader get inside Jason’s head and identify with him, which is vital if you want your reader to care about your protagonist and get engaged in your story.

But you need to go even further – you need to describe what he’s seeing and feeling by using words and expressions that he would normally use. If your character is a blue-collar worker and high-school dropout, you’re not going to describe the scene or his reactions in highly educated, articulate, flowery terms.

It’s also important to be vigilant that your viewpoint doesn’t slip, so you’re suddenly giving someone else’s opinion about Jason, or telling about something that’s happening in the kitchen, when Jason is in the living room. You can let the reader know other people’s reactions to Jason by what Jason perceives – he sees their looks and body language, hears their words and tone of voice, etc.

If you’re writing a romance, and you’re in the heroine’s point of view, and the hero is angry, you will show his thoughts and reactions, not from inside him (“That jerk! he thought, I’ll show him!”) but by what the heroine is seeing and perceiving – his tense posture, hunched shoulders, clenched fists, furrowed brows, set mouth, clipped tone of voice, angry words, etc.

The general rule of thumb is “one scene, one viewpoint.” Or even better, wait for a new chapter to change the point of view to someone else’s. If you change the viewpoint within a scene, it’s best to do it only once, and leave a blank space before you start the next person’s point of view. Ping-ponging back and forth can be jarring and confusing to the reader. This is what’s referred to as “head-hopping.”

So why is it so important to avoid switching viewpoints (head-hopping) within scenes?

According to Cynthia VanRooy, “When a reader becomes emotionally engaged in a book, he or she enters into the story. The writer has hypnotized the reader into participating in the illusion of the fictional world. The reader understands the book world isn’t real, but in order to fully enjoy the story, he or she chooses to temporarily pretend otherwise, or to suspend their disbelief. […]

“Every time you shift the reader from one character to another, they are jarred out of their suspension of disbelief and reminded they aren’t actually living in the fictional world you’ve created, they’re only reading a story. Do that often enough and they’ll stop reading your story. Scene changes or new chapters are the best and least disruptive places to change POV.

“…Deep POV gives the reader a chance to really identify with a character, something you aim for as an author. Even Nora Roberts, famous for her frequent changes in POV, lets the reader stay in one character long enough to become thoroughly hooked.”

Self-editing tip to avoid head-hopping or a meandering viewpoint:

A quick way to check whose POV you’re in is to get out the markers and choose a different color for each of your main characters. Pick your protagonist’s color, then start highlighting sentences that describe scenes, people and perceptions strictly from his POV. Do the same for other characters, with their color. When you’re done, you should have paragraphs, and preferably scenes, of only one color. If you have another color creeping into that scene, see if you can rewrite those sentences from the dominating character’s POV. If you have a number of colors within one scene, you’ve got some revisions to do. And as Stephen King says, “Writing is rewriting.” Keep on writing!

By Jodie Renner, November 2010

Resources: The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them) by Jack M. Bickham; “POV or: Whose Head Am I in, Anyway?” by Cynthia VanRooy http://www.cynthiavanrooy.com/.

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: FIRE UP YOUR FICTION,  CAPTIVATE YOUR READERS, and WRITING A KILLER THRILLER, as well as two clickable time-saving e-resources, QUICK CLICKS: Spelling List and QUICK CLICKS: Word Usage. She has also organized two anthologies for charity: VOICES FROM THE VALLEYS – Stories and Poems about Life in BC’s Interior, and CHILDHOOD REGAINED – Stories of Hope for Asian Child Workers. Jodie lives in Kelowna, BC, Canada. Website: www.JodieRenner.com;  Facebook. Amazon Author Page.

STYLE BLUNDERS IN FICTION

by Jodie Renner, editor and author 

No, I’m not talking about the fashion police coming after you. I’m talking about those little errors and bad habits that creep into your manuscript, weaken your message, and add up to an overall feeling of amateurish writing.

The good news is that, unlike the more critical creative flow of story plot and character ideas, these little bad habits are easy to correct, resulting in a much more polished, compelling manuscript.

Here are some of those nasty little weeds to find and yank out of your literary garden, to be replaced with unique, striking blooms that will be the envy of the neighborhood:

1. Take out wishy-washy qualifiers like quite, sort of, almost, kind of, a bit, pretty, somewhat, rather, usually, basically, generally, probably, mostly, really, etc. Forget “He was quite brave,” or “She was pretty intelligent” or “It was almost scary,” or “Nala could kind of feel a sense of foreboding.” These qualifiers dilute your message, reduce the impact, and make the imagery weaker. Take them out. Even very is to be avoided – it’s like you’re saying the word after it needs reinforcing. “She was beautiful” packs more punch than “She was very beautiful.”

2. Avoid –ing verbs wherever possible. Use –ed verbs instead – they’re stronger and more immediate. “He was racing” is weaker than “He raced.” “They searched the house” is more immediate than “They were searching the house.” Rewrite -ing verbs whenever you can, and you’ll strengthen your writing and increase its power.

3. Show us, don’t tell us how your characters are feeling. Avoid statements like “She was depressed,” “He found that funny,” or “The little girl felt sad.” Show these emotions by their actions, words, and body language: “Eyes downcast, shoulders slumped, head down, she refused to answer as she pushed her food around the plate.”

4. Avoid colorless, overused verbs like walked, ran, went, saw, talked, ate, did, got, put, took, turned. Get out your thesaurus (or use the MS Word one. Hint: look up the present tense: walk, run, eat, say, etc.) to find more expressive, powerful verbs instead, like crept, loped, stumbled, stomped, glimpsed, noticed, observed, witnessed, spied, grunted, whimpered, devoured, consumed, gobbled, wolfed, munched, bolted, raged, or grabbed.

5. Keep adverbs to a minimum. Instead of propping up a boring, anemic verb with an adverb, look for strong, descriptive, powerful verbs. Instead of “He walked slowly” go for “He plodded” or “He trudged” or “He dawdled.” Instead of “She ate hungrily” say “She devoured the bag of chips,” or “She wolfed down the pizza.” Instead of “They talked quickly,” say “They babbled.”

6. Use adjectives sparingly and consciously. Instead of stringing a bunch of adjectives in front of an ordinary, overused noun, find a more precise, expressive noun to show rather than tell. Overuse of adjectives can also turn your writing into “purple prose” that is melodramatic and overly “flowery.”

7. Dialogue tags – Stick with the basic he said and she said (or asked) wherever possible, rather than “he emphasized” or “she reiterated” or “Mark conjectured" or "Lisa questioned,” etc. These kinds of words stand out, so they take the reader out of the story, whereas “said” is almost invisible. However, I like dialogue tags that describe how something is said, as in he shouted, she murmured, he grumbled, she whispered, he stuttered, she muttered, he yelled. You can often eliminate the dialogue tag altogether and just use an action beat instead: He picked up the phone. “That’s it. I’m calling the cops.”

8. Describe the stimulus, then the response: When writing an action scene, make sure your sentence structure mimics the order of the actions. The reader pictures the actions in the order that she reads them, so it’s confusing to read about the reaction before finding out what caused it. So describe the action first, then the reaction: Instead of “She screamed when the door slammed on her finger,” write: “The door slammed on her finger and she screamed.” (or “causing her to scream,” or whatever.)

9. Avoid the passive voice: For greater impact, when describing an action, start with the doer, then describe what he did, rather than the other way around. Use the more direct active voice wherever possible, for more impact. Instead of “The house was taped off by the police,” write “The police taped off the house.” Also, avoid empty phrases like “There is”, “There was,” “It’s,” “It was.” Jump right in with what you’re actually talking about.

10. Avoid negative constructions wherever possible – they can be confusing to the reader. Instead of “I didn’t disagree with him,” say “I agreed with him.”

11. Avoid frequent repetition of the same word or forms of the same word. If you’ve already used a certain noun or verb in a paragraph or section, go to your thesaurus to find a different way to express that idea when you mention it again. Also, avoid repetition of the same imagery. Whether you’re describing the setting, the weather, or the hero or heroine, vary your wording.

12. Avoid formal sentences and pretentious language. Rather than impressing your readers, ornate, fancy words can just end up alienating them. As Jessica Page Morrell says in Thanks, But This Isn’t for Us, “if a reader is constantly consulting a dictionary when reading your prose, you’re dragging him from the story.” As Morrell points out, “Simple words are close to our hearts and easily understood.... simpler words are unpretentious, yet contain power and grace….Pompous words are alienating, boring, and outdated.”

13. Avoid being overly wordy. Don’t clutter up your sentences with a lot of extra little words. For example, instead of writing in the vicinity of, just write near. Instead of as a consequence of, just write because. Instead of a large percentage of, just use many. Instead of in the direction of, use toward. Instead of “The sword that he was holding was knocked to the ground,” just say “His sword was knocked to the ground.” Extra words drain life from your work. The fewer words used to express an idea, the more punch it has.

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: FIRE UP YOUR FICTION,  CAPTIVATE YOUR READERS, and WRITING A KILLER THRILLER, as well as two clickable time-saving e-resources, QUICK CLICKS: Spelling List and QUICK CLICKS: Word Usage. She has also organized two anthologies for charity: VOICES FROM THE VALLEYS – Stories and Poems about Life in BC’s Interior, and CHILDHOOD REGAINED – Stories of Hope for Asian Child Workers. Website: www.JodieRenner.com; Facebook. Amazon Author Page.