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Writing Dialogue

September 23, 2008 — Pat Bertram

Dialogue is not conversation. It is an artificial construct that gives the impression of spontaneous and realistic speech without the ums and ers and repetition and stuttering and sidetracks into inanity that characterizes normal conversation. Dialogue shows the relationship between characters, and ideally should be so effective that any analysis of the relationship is unnecessary.

Elizabeth Bowen, a British author, writes: “What are the realistic qualities to be imitated (or faked) in novel dialogue? Spontaneity. Artless or hit-or-miss arrival at words used. Ambiguity (speaker not sure, himself, what he means.) Irrelevance. Allusiveness. Erraticness, unpredictable course. Repercussion.

“What must novel dialogue, behind mask of these fake rrealistic qualities, really be and do? It must be pointed, intentional, relevant. It must crystallize situation. It must express character. It must advance plot. During dialogue, the characters confront one another. The confrontation is in itself an occasion. Each one of these occasions, throughout the novel, is unique. Since the last confrontation, something has changed, advanced. What is being said is the effect of something that happened; at the same time, what is being said is in itself something happening, which will, in turn, leave its effect.”

Dialogue also characterizes the speaker; we can tell who a character is by what that character says and how he or she says it. Each character the main character interacts with should bring our a different facet of the character. You generally don’t speak the same way to your boss and your best friend, your mother and your spouse.

Sometimes when people talk to others, especially when they accuse the other person of doing or behaving in a certain way, they are talking to themselves. So, in effect, what a character says to another or about another reveals the character’s inner thoughts. Like dreams. Didn’t Freud say that all characters in a dream are facets of the dreamer?

So how do you write good dialogue?

Make speeches short.
Have speakers cut in on one another.
Answer a question with a question.
Ignore questions, or answer it after another exchange of words.
Instead of a character answering a question directly, have him tell why it was done: “Did you eat the cookie?” “They looked so good.”
Have characters play tug-of-war with words, each trying to get something from the other.
When editing, review every snippet of speech and ask yourself, “Is this the best, the wittiest, the most dramatic thing the character can say?” Dialogue is not life. In life, most of us can’t think of the perfect response until it is way too late. But in writing you can take your time and make each bit of dialogue a jewel.

A perfect bit of dialogue from the seventh century:

A foreign conquerors sent the Laconians a message: “If I come to Laconia, not one brick will stand on another.”

The laconic reply? “If”.

Posted in books, How to, life, writing. Tags: character, character development, characterization, dialogue, dream as facets of the dreamer, Freud, laconic dialogue, main character, reveal character's inner thoughts, writing, writing good dialogue. 1 Comment »

Where Do You Insert Dialogue?

September 22, 2008 — Pat Bertram

Someone asked me where they should insert dialogue into the novel they were writing. I went blank for a moment, unable to comprehend the question. Insert dialogue? To a great extent, dialogue is the story. The most personal way people interact is by dialogue, and a story is or should be about people interacting, about relationships. Even action-oriented stories come down to a basic relationship: the hero vs the villain.

A better question might be where to insert exposition, but even that is a specious question. Nothing in a novel should be inserted. Each element should flow one into the other, making a cohesive whole. I’ve heard people say that they’ve finished writing their novel, now all they have left is to go back and insert the symbolism. If you have to insert something for the sake of inserting it, it’s better to leave it out. Symbols, like other elements should flow out of the story.

Novels need to balanced. Dialogue interspersed with exposition or action makes for a more interesting story than dialogue or exposition or action alone. A novel that is mostly dialogue seems lightweight; a novel with too much exposition feels heavy-handed; a novel that is all action gets boring after a while.

One way to make sure the elements flow together is to know what you are trying to accomplish. What kind of story are you writing? What is your story goal? What is your premise? What is the core conflict? Once you know the core of your story, you can make sure every element connects to it. Sometimes you won’t know the core until you’ve finished the first draft. In which case, just write, let the words flow out of you and into the story. Then, when the draft is finished, read it to see what you have. Do any themes jump out at you? What is the gist of the story (the core conflict)? How can you use the various story elements help you bring out that conflict? Does every action have a reaction? Does every reaction have a cause? Which element will bring the conflict into sharper focus? If a particular conflict is a physical one, then action interspersed with terse comments is best. If a particular conflict is personal, then dialogue interspersed with bits of action is best.

Where to insert dialogue, then, is not the real question. The real question is what do you want to say, and how do you want to say it?

Posted in books, How to, life, writing. Tags: action, core conflict, dialogue, dialogue as story, exposition, focus, insert dialogue, inserting symbols, premise, story elements, story flow, story goal, story structure, storytelling, writing. 1 Comment »

A Writer Writes. Always?

September 21, 2008 — Pat Bertram

A writer writes. Always.

Or so they say. (Whoever “they” are.) Many professional authors write for six months a year and spend the other six months promoting. This does not make such writers less than those who doggedly sit down every day and churn out a quota of words. A writer writes, of course. But always? So much goes into writing — thinking, outlining, researching, learning the craft — that it’s hard to tell when a writer is not working.

I’m one of those writers who carry on imaginary conversations with my characters. I always plan to jot down these conversations , but I usually have them when I am out walking, and by the time I get home, most of them are out of my head. A lot comes back when I sit down to write, and some of those conversations end up in the story. Are these conversations writing? Of course not. But they are part of the writing process. It is the process, the focus– getting into the story and staying there, keeping it in the back of our minds when we are doing other things, filtering our lives through the mesh of the story — that makes us writers, not simply word counts.

Does writing this article count as “a writer writes; always”? Probably not. But I am writing, and writing this blog helps me focus my thoughts. Is editing considered writing? I don’t know. Still, I’ve been going through my finished manuscripts once more, taking out all the bits that fail to support the focus of the story, and now those novels are better focused on the theme. But that editing cuts into my writing time. Does researching book marketing techniques count as writing? I doubt it, but writers who intend to be published one day need to know how to promote their book. All these things that take me away from my work-in-progress help focus my life around writing. Help focus my attention on writing.

Maybe a better way of describing a writer is” a writer writes, and when a writer isn’t writing, a writer is focused on writing.”

Posted in blogging, books, life, writing. Tags: a writer writes, conversations with characters, editing, focus of story, focus on writing, history/myth, keeping focused, promotion, writers, writing. 2 Comments »

On Writing: Food

September 19, 2008 — Pat Bertram

Sex and violence are visceral activites, but so is eating. Food is at once primitive and sophisticated, animalistic and human. We need to eat, but to a great extent we get to choose what we eat. And we get to choose for our characters. In fact, the characters of our characters lie in that choice. Are they vegan, omnivore, or something in between? Do they binge out or are they ascetic? When alone, do they take the time to cook a meal for themselves, or do they eat it standing over the sink? For me, a big question is what characters do with leftovers. Whenever characters in books throw away perfectly good food, I lose all sympathy for them and start rooting for the villains. Even in a world of abundance, food is precious. Or should be.

Wasted food gripes the heck out of me; I despise real and fictional food fights. Shows disrespect for life, a total lack of sensitivity, and people who never knew want. Another movie/book scene I absolutely hate is when a guy proposes to a woman by putting a ring in her drink, in a desert, or any other comestible. All I can think of is broken teeth when she bites into it or a punctured gut when she swallows it. Very romantic!

Besides describing character, food can be used as a theme, a plot point, a symbol. Food can be used to define the emotion of a scene or to delay the action and add suspense. Food helps create a setting in historical novels. The way a person eats tells a lot about character. You don’t need to describe food. Everyone knows what hamburger tastes like, or ice cream or jello. The whole ambience of food is much more important. I have one character who chews each mouthful of food exactly twenty-five times. His fiance finds herself counting his jaw movements, and by that you can tell that there relationship is doomed.

Just think of all the conflict attached to a family feast, such as a Thanksgiving dinner. The drama of several women competing to make their own favorite dressing, the trauma of a burnt pumpkin pie, the complication of children running underfoot, the conflicts of . . . You know the story. You’ve been there.

Movies and television shows are filled with great food scenes. The best Golden Girls shows were the ones where they sat at the kitchen table eating everything in sight, and talking about their lives. And who can forget the breakfast scene in My Stepmother Was an Alien, where she cooked up an entire menu. Or the breakfast scene in Uncle Buck when John Candy made pancakes as big as a table and used a snow shovel as a turner. All great food visuals, but also much going on beneath the scene.

What role does food plays in your novels, in novels you have read, or in movies you have seen?

Fun food related websites:

The Food Time Line

History and Legends of Favorite Foods

History of Food and Food Products

Food History Resources

Food and Drink in Regency England

Medieval Recipes

The Very First Book. The Very First Time.

September 10, 2008 — Pat Bertram

Claire Collins, author of Fate and Destiny and Images of Betrayal, writes across many genres. She loves reading when she gets the time around her family and her work schedule. Collins, my guest blogger, speaks of how it feels to hold your published book in your hands for the first time:

The very first book…

Years of hard work, my heart and soul translated into words on a page, open for the world to see. This is the leap of faith for a writer. A manuscript is a very private thing until I let that first person read it. After the first person, I allowed other eyes to see my words. With encouragement and tons of edits, my private world that I created is sent out into the world. I almost cried when it made its debut on Amazon. I hadn’t even seen a copy of the book yet and I couldn’t control myself. Before I even knew what I was doing, I was clicking the “Complete order” button with overnight shipping. I paid full price plus expedited shipping for a book that I would soon receive multiple copies of thanks to my publisher. My friends laughed at me sympathetically but they all nodded with understanding. Most of them would do the same thing.

I was at work when my skinny little box arrived from Amazon. My family could hardly contain themselves as they waited at the front door for me to come in the house. They presented the box to me like it was a priceless family heirloom, meant to be handled with care. I tore the box open and held my book in my hands. A tear slid from the corner of my eye, but I was laughing at the same time. Those were really my words on the pages I flipped through. That was my title, my photo, my blurbs. This was my book. My husband was downright giddy watching me hold my book. It was better than Christmas. He got the camera and took a picture of me holding my book. In the quiet evening after the excitement died down and the children wandered off, I sat looking at my book, flipping through the pages. What if people hated it? Then again, what if people loved it? Since I am a first time author with a small publisher, most people will never even see my book or know it exists. Maybe when I write the fiftieth novel, people will be clamoring to own these first novels. I don’t know what the future holds in terms of book sales. I only know that nothing will ever replace the feeling of opening the box and seeing the very first copy of my book.

Claire Collins’s books are available from Amazon and Second Wind Publishing.

I Do Not Have Writer’s Block

September 9, 2008 — Pat Bertram

My hero is running from a volcano and has been running from the dang thing for at least three months. I can hear him panting from exhaustion, but I sit at the computer and spend my words writing articles, leaving comments, sending emails. I have no words left to get him out of his predicament.

In the end, that’s why I write. Not for the fulfullment, not because of a compusion, but because the words gang up on me, using all available brain space. The only way to free myself is to let the words out. But the words I’m letting out now have to do with the mechanics of writing, and so my poor hero runs. And runs.

I thought for sure by getting guest bloggers to do my work for me that the words would begin to weigh heavy on my mind, but I wasted those words on other websites. And I used to be such a thrifty sort.

I did come up with another idea for getting me back on track with my WIP: start another blog, one just to let my hero run free. Maybe I’ll post my research, notes on character, anything that pertains to the WIP. It seems like such a great idea, but here I am, planning to waste more words while not writing my novel.

But it could work. Especially if I can put one of those widgets on the site that shows how much of the book I’ve finished. Could shame me out of my not writer’s block.

Posted in blogging, books, fiction, life, writing. Tags: blog, blogging, character, guest bloggers, hero, why I write, why write, WIP, words, work in progress, writing, writing: writer's block. 3 Comments »

On Writing: Choosing Your Subject Matter

September 5, 2008 — Pat Bertram

Warren Adler has generously consented to host my blog today and to share his expertise. Adler is the world famous author of 30 novels, including The War of the Roses and his latest, Funny Boys. Adler says:

Subject matter is an important element in novel writing. What, who and when are issues that can determine the impact a novelist makes on the publishing community. For a publisher, marketing issues are paramount. Since the public is notoriously fickle in its interests, the publishing marketer often has to anticipate what will most engage the public mind in the twelve to eighteen months it will take for a mainstream publisher to produce and market a book. For non-fiction it is a lot easier to anticipate. For fiction, publishers need to consult a psychic.

It is an antiquated system and much debated, but not on trial in this space. For the novelist, basing one’s work on marketing prognostications, can, I suppose, be useful for one’s career prospects. I wish I could be helpful in this regard, but, alas, I admit surrender. Unfortunately, I have taken the path less traveled. I guess my compass is not set to the magnetic north of commercial blockbusting.

Getting published and staying publishable is based primarily on other issues. A publisher’s first question is “will a title sell?” At times he will base his bet on what has sold before or check the computer numbers of an author’s track record assuming that after one or two outings a novelist who has not developed a base of readers will never find a niche. It is highly unlikely that a publisher will nurture a novelist through more than two, maybe three, books if he or she does not meet the bean counter’s goals. To a publisher a book is a commodity and we all know that a commodity, a product, must make a profit. I am not being critical of the process, merely realistic.

The fact is that I cannot write a novel based on a publisher’s marketing systems. My choices of subject matter are too eclectic. I write what I must write, based on my own instincts and inner navigational system. Since I believe that writing is a calling, I heed the clarion of my interior compass. I write to meet my own needs to tell stories and base the menu of my choices on the bedrock proposition that human nature is constant and unchanging and real stories cannot be made to measure.

Nevertheless, by dint of pluck and luck, I have managed to attract publishers to 27 novels, with translations in 30 foreign languages so far and through my pioneering electronic publishing enterprise, I hope to expand my coterie of devoted readers. I ply my merry way, having stumbled upon a comfortable place for such a counter intuitive writing journey.

For the budding novelist hungry for fame and fortune, I am probably not a very good role model. Forgive me not providing a magic bullet for recognition and mass readership. And who knows? Lightening might strike, and you will find that your novel fulfills your hopes and dreams for recognition and, with luck, lots of money.

Indeed, the most commercially successful novelists have branded themselves by hewing to the boundaries of various genres. Writers have made millions following the rules of creating stories that fit into preordained slots. Sometimes they have invented new slots such as “the woman in jeopardy,” a genre pioneered by Mary Higgins Clark, or “the good lawyer,” a genre practically invented by John Grisham or the “strong woman family dynasty,” genre stumbled upon by Barbara Bradford Taylor. Or the wildly successful Christian based series Left Behind. Cheers and congratulations to them. They have found the secret of a successful and sustained novel writing career.

My effort here is far more parochial, advising how to create a novel that is as important to its creator as it is to the potential reader. Above all, the reader must be engaged, from beginning to end of the writer’s effort. I am assuming, of course, that a pipeline from storyteller to story reader exists. Constructing that pipeline is a related subject that will be dealt with in another time and place. My website is a prime example of finding an alternative road to readership.

Thus, you will find my discussion about subject matter for a novelist inconclusive. I will not resort to clichés about writing what you know, since intuition often trumps experience. Having written what many have cited as the most realistic and accurate divorce novel in recent memory, The War of the Roses, the point is made. I have never been divorced and am happily married to the same lady since I was barely out of adolescence. But whatever the subject be sure to choose wisely before too much effort is expanded on the work.

Sometimes it takes writing many words before a novelist can be comfortable about the story path he has chosen. I have often abandoned an effort after a hundred or more pages, having discovered that the subject, the plot, the characters, the emotional mood, the idea itself can no longer engage my interest.

My advice is to think long and hard before choosing the subject matter of your novel. I have found that a story grows in one’s mind like a potato in a water glass, creating many sprouts that are always popping up. Indeed, even as the novel takes shape on the page, ideas continue to sprout setting off new paths to revision and rewriting. I will often think about every element of the story long before I begin the act of creation. Even then, the work might pale as it progresses.

The trick is to embark upon a writing road that sustains your interest and keeps you excited and engaged throughout the process. If you can’t wait to get down to work every morning and approach your composition with excitement and enthusiasm you are on the right track. If not, as the saying goes, don’t give up your day job.

Posted in blogging, books, culture, fiction, life, writing. Tags: Barbara Bradford Taylor, Funny Boys, John Grisham, Left Behind, Mary Higgins Clark, publisher, publishing, subject matter, The War of the Roses, Warren Adler, writing. 23 Comments »

Critiquing: How to Critique Another Writer’s Story

September 4, 2008 — Pat Bertram

Kim Smith, today’s guest blogger, is the author of Avenging Angel, a Shannon Wallace Mystery coming soon from Enspiren Press. Smith writes:

So you are going to critique another writer’s story? How do you feel about this?

Do you feel you have the ability to be non-personal, and give them the sort of information they will need to be a better writer? Or do you worry that you may say something that will turn them against writing for all time? It’s okay to feel all of this. Hopefully by the end of this article you will believe you can do this critique thing with no fear, or worry.

A good first question to ask is why am I doing this?

We all as writers need someone to look at our work and give it an overall opinion as to whether it is good or not. We all need improvement, and a helpful crit can get us to the next level with our writing.

Critting also helps the critter, too. You have an easier time seeing your own little problems when you correctly find it in another’s work. And oh yes, we all have issues.

Of course, you want to keep your critique along the lines of helpful.

A negative critique should always be directed toward the writing, not the author. Leave your personal attitude at the door, people. I mean no one wants a sarcastic, nasty crit that smacks of personal attack. No room for that at the table, not even when trying to make a valid point. It should rest with the author as to whether your advice is taken. So, in essence, critique as you would have them critique you.

Now of course, the writer also plays a part in the critiquing effort, and that is, he or she should be willing and able to accept the critique offered.

Listen, this critiquer is giving you all of his or her knowledge, maybe your book DOES need the change. Don’t toss the baby out with the bathwater.

How you go about giving a critique is as individual as the books are.

You can do a complete read through and go back and make comments. You can do a line-by-line as you read, and you can always combine those two, or come up with your own method. No one cares HOW you do it as much as the fact that it is useful and correct.

Correctness is a matter to consider also, critiquers.

You must research your own opinions, too. Google that historical fact, make sure it is accurate. One time I had written something about a “red-light district” in a Civil War novel. Of course, that would have been completely impossible, because electric lights such as I had implied didn’t exist yet,. and my critters called me on it.

Finally, think through your critique and put it into a good format for your writer.

If they need a line number to go to or a chapter place to go to, put it in the crit so they can find where you are telling them the problem is. A writer sometimes cannot see the forest for the trees, so it is good to have reference points.

I hope this has helped you in your efforts to give and receive a critique of your work.

Posted in blogging, books, How to, life, writing. Tags: Avenging Angel, critique, critiques, history/myth, Kim Smith, writing. 4 Comments »

Writing to the Extremes

September 2, 2008 — Pat Bertram

It is not necessarily true that a picture is worth a thousand words. It takes only a few words, if they are the right words, to create vivid portraits. The secret is to choose significant details — details that mean something, that promote the story, that evoke emotion — rather than to write long passages of trivia. By writing to the extremes (the extremities, I mean) we can bring our characters to life in a new way.

In The Blue Nowhere, Jeffery Deaver tells us about Wyatt Gillette, a computer wizard, by focusing our attention on Gillette’s hands. Gillette has thick yellow calluses on the tips of his muscular fingers, and even when Gillette is not at a computer, his fingers move constantly as if typing on an invisible keyboard. I know somewhere in the novel Deaver described Gillette, but did he really need to? Don’t we get a feeling for the character from those two significant details?

By describing a character’s hands, we can describe the character. A man with manicured and buffed fingernails is different from one with grime permanently etched into his cuticles. A woman with bitten fingernails is different from one with dirty, broken nails, and both are different from a woman wearing designer acrylic nails. The color of nail polish a woman chooses tells us about her character. And clear nail polish on a man would tell us about his character.

We can describe hands in many ways: claw-like, thin, scrawny, big-knuckled, blue-veined, plump, fat, chubby, arthritic. Characters can have tattooed hands. They can wear gloves, a simple wedding band, or multiple rings on each finger.

Hands also do things. They wave, point, gesture, touch chins or noses, and each of these gestures and mannerisms tells us about the character.

And don’t forget fingers and toes. What is there to say about toes? Think about a woman who wears severe suits and a severe hairstyle but paints her toenails crimson. That contradiction makes us want to know more about her. Or think about a man with a mincing walk stemming from shoes so small they pinch his toes.

Do you remember to use the extremities in your novels? How do you use them? What ways can you use them, but don’t? Can you think of ways to describe characters by their extremities alone? What gestures or mannerisms can define characters? What gestures or mannerisms can characters use that may be fresh and not trite? (For example, restless feet can denote lying, or a desire to be somewhere else, or boredom.) What other example can you think of (or have already written) where a character’s extremities play a significant role? Is it better for the extremities to match the character or contradict it? Shoes are a significant fact of life; how do shoes figure into your novel?

Posted in blogging, books, culture, fiction, How to, life, writing. Tags: character, characterization, describing hands, description, extremities, gestures, Jeffery Deaver, mannerisms, picture worth a thousand words, The Blue Nowhere, writing. Leave a Comment »

On Writing: Deconstructing Descriptive Passages

August 29, 2008 — Pat Bertram

A. F. Stewart, author of Inside Realms, has accepted my invitation to be a guest host. Stewart is from Nova Scotia, and writes fantasy stories and poetry. Stewart tells us:

Wandering through cyberspace’s social networking, I have come across many an aspiring writer eagerly posting their work for comments and critiques. As a result I have learned two things: that the internet is alive with writers with notable, appealing ideas and many of these aspiring writers have problems creating a good descriptive scene. These would-be writers either construct a simple methodical listing of the scene’s surroundings or they fill a scene with unnecessary detail punctuated with fluffy adjectives/adverbs. Both of these ways of writing a narrative scene can render a piece of work tedious and mediocre.

The straight descriptive technique reads like an inventory list, is a quick way to lose a reader to boredom, and buries talent in uninspired prose. Never write is an illustrative scene where you simply tick off the surroundings in an orderly fashion.

Here is an example of a list-like description:

Butch was standing on the back porch, staring at the garden. To his right were the red rose bushes, beside the pink azalea bushes. The two cedar trees were at the back, along the stone garden wall, and the cobblestone path ran through the middle of the garden. To his left were the lilac bushes and the lilies.

Now that described the garden well enough, but did you care? Did you feel like you were there with Butch, or would like to be?

Now this passage:

Butch was standing on the back porch, in the fading light, staring at the early summer garden. He could smell the heady scent of rose bushes wafting on the slight breeze. He turned his head to the right, noticing how well their deep red colour mixed with the pink of the nearby azalea bushes. Movement by the back stone wall caught his attention; he chuckled as a squirrel raced up one of the two cedar trees that grew against the wall.

He could hear the drone of the hummingbirds and the sweet chirping of the sparrows, and spied them flitting among the lilies and white lilac bushes that bloomed in the left side of the garden. There were chickadees feeding on the winding cobblestone path; Jessica had most likely thrown them some seeds earlier.

It is far more expressive, isn’t it?

A good descriptive scene invokes the visual, but also other sensory input such as sounds, smells, tactile feel, even a character’s memories. The best writing tries to recreate how a real person would experience the event.

Now cramming every tiny detail into scenes doesn’t work either, because you veer into the comical and absurd. It screams amateur to readers, as does using unusual adjectives/adverbs to illustrate and emphasize.

I shall demonstrate:

Jessica was sitting harshly, rigidly, upright at her very murky, black, baby grand piano that her most beloved grandmother had happily given her for her sixteenth birthday four years ago; the very antique piano that had once belonged to her grandmother. She had been staring exceptionally hard for more than fifteen minutes at the vaguely spider-webbed cracked, ebony-black, ivory keys that just lay there like a stiff, solid, bit of off-white fishbone that had the last of the flesh scraped off it. She could not focus her scattered thoughts on the sheets of music that were laid out most carefully in front of her on the shiny, shadow black music rack that was attached to the piano. She was certainly supposed to be practicing Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude , a piece of music she thoroughly treasured and often played, but her thoughts and feelings would not depart the memory of Butch leaving her this morning to sail far away across the deep ocean to Cornwall, England. His face still bounced in her memory; his thick, shiny, exuberant, wood-brown hair, his sparkling, sassy, intelligent emerald green eyes, his sculptured, firm, Roman nose, his warm, full, soft, exquisite mouth.

Now that was a passage just brimming over with description, and confusion.

Here’s something showing less is more:

Jessica was sitting stiffly at her baby grand piano, the antique her grandmother had given her for her sixteenth birthday. She stared yet again at the slightly cracked keys, knowing that she could not focus her thoughts on her music. She was supposed to be practicing Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude, but her thoughts kept wandering to the memory of Butch’s leave-taking this morning. His face still haunted her memory; his thick, brown hair, his sparkling, green eyes, and his warm, exquisite mouth. Now he was sailing from her, to Cornwall, England.

A writer must be careful about use of details, too many spoil the mix. Also beware the overuse of adjectives and adverbs, and make certain you match the adjective/adverb with the mood of your narrative passage.

Remember to keep it simple, evocative and never tell your reader everything at once. Feed your reader details like crumbs, making a trail through your story.

When creating a scene or description, you are trying for atmosphere, to make a reader feel they are within your words. A writer has to set the scene, and strike a balance between doling out the details and going overboard with the wordage.

For more information, see Stewart’s Squidoo lens: How to Write a Fantasy Novel.