emme écrit

Writer’s Block

A picture says a thousand words. Write them.

Mission: Write a story, a description, a poem, a metaphor, a commentary, or a critique about this picture. Write something about this picture.

We all get angry. It is natural and it can be a good thing. When it is uncontrolled or unnecessary, anger will not do us any favours on either a personal or a social level.

The same is true for the characters we create. When we write about angry characters, we should remember that there is always something behind this emotion. Anger is usually a surface emotion. It is a reaction to an underlying problem.  

Let’s look at:

Motivation 

Body Language

Passive or Aggressive - How angry is your character?

Ways To Create Conflict

The Importance of Anger in Plotting

by Amanda Patterson

If you enjoyed this article,  you will love:

Cheat Sheets for Writing Body Language

10 Ways to Introduce Conflict in Dialogue

Writing Tip: Why you need a villain in your story

Universal Needs - Creating Characters

When crazy is good - Nine good reasons for your character’s anger

Have you heard of NaNoWriMo?

It’s where people in November pledge to write 50,000 words - a novel - in 30 days. It’s great! If you’ve ever wanted to write a novel, consider this as the sign you were waiting for. Seriously, check it out.

There’s lots of good advice to be had when attempting NaNo. But the one thing people tend to get hung up on is this: it’s hard. Really hard. Really, REALLY hard.

This can be for a variety of reasons, but for me it’s research. I try to research all the things and stuff I need to  before I write, but sometimes I’ll be going on my merry way and BOOM, I forgot what I named that hospital. Or BOOM I don’t know what the parts to a horse’s saddle is. So I go to Google and Google tells me. But it never stops there. I always go, “While I’m here, I might as well check tumblr.” And then, BOOM - an hour has passed and I haven’t touched what I was writing.

This is no good. I need to focus and not break my momentum while I’m writing. Stopping to open a browser and searching on Google breaks my momentum. So what do I do? Research even more? As much as I’d like to think I can predict everything that happens in my plot, I just can’t.

Instead of extensive, mind-numbing research, I do this. Whenever I find myself stalling to think of a name or an adjective or literally anything else, I write ELEPHANT instead. Elephant. And then go on my merry way.

It felt really stupid when I started. The worse is when I read what I’ve written and forgot that I slapped on an elephant in the middle of an intense scene.

But it works! I promise, I wouldn’t do it if it didn’t.

And when I edit, all I do is find each “elephant” with the search option of whatever word-processor I’m using and insert it’s rightful word - the well-researched-after-I’ve-written-the-book word. I’ve told a few people about my Elephant Technique, and I knew a few people who use different words: cantaloupe, poodle, Febreze. It all works. 

As an expert in writing – okay, I just made that up (count how many times I break my own rules below) – I thought that I would write a list of the top 10 ways to improve your writing. These rules apply to writing on paper or for the internet. You can be sure that you will see a dramatic improvement in your writing by following these simple rules. In no particular order: (yes – I know that isn’t a sentence).

Activate your sentences

By avoiding the use of passives in your sentences, you can give strength to your words. Passive verbs include “is”, “were”, “was”, “could have”, “would have”, and so on. Take this sentences for example:

The mouse was eaten by the cat (“was eaten” is in the passive voice). A better sentenced would be: The cat ate the mouse (“ate” is in the active voice).

You can remember this difference easily by recognizing the subject and object of the sentence: the cat is the subject, the mouse is the object. If the subject is “doing” the verb (in this case “to eat”) then the sentence is in the active voice. If the subject is not the actor, it is in the passive voice. Unfortunately for us English speakers, we have almost lost the clear differentiation between subject and object that other languages have, so you must think harder to determine the subject and object. The difference does remain in a few words, for example who (subjective) and whom (objective), I (subjective) and me (objective).

It’s that time of year again—National Novel Writing Month! Every November, thousands of authors take part in the NaNoWriMo marathon writing challenge and attempt to successfully complete a 50,000-word novel by the end of the month. In 2014, NaNoWriMo had 325,142 participants!

Many writers start out filled with energy and determination on November 1, eager to begin tracking their word counts. But as the days stretch into weeks and more and more nights and weekends are spent hunched over a keyboard, your initial enthusiasm may begin to falter. Fortunately, we have some tips to help you survive the rigors of NaNoWriMo and make it all the way to November 30 with your head held high—and hopefully the first draft of your manuscript clutched in your cramped, tired fingers.

Pico Iyer