Outlining – Method 2: Active Beats (aka “Show Don’t Tell”)

Happy Archive Revive Day! It’s always helpful to refresh what we know about writing by digging up past posts and updating the information a bit, so here we go… Originally posted on Oct. 7, 2013. Updated Sept. 21, 2015 I learned this method of outlining at Ryerson University. My screenwriting professor called it a Step Outline. …
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D is for Dialogue

Welcome to day four of the Write On Sisters Blogging from A to Z Challenge. Today we BLASTOFF with D is for Dialogue. This is ground control, come in Space Station! Repeat! Come in Space Station! … Communication link disabled … We don’t think much about how we talk to others until it’s gone. If you’ve …
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Screenwriter Tips for Novelists: Writing Dialogue

As a screenwriter, I had no choice but to learn a thing or fifty about writing dialogue. Scripts are 50% dialogue. The other half is physical action. That’s it. There are no other ways to express the story in a screenplay – no inner monologues, no poetic descriptions, and no narrated explanations. Only dialogue and …
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He Said, She Said: Writing Dialogue

Writing dialogue is the heart of my writing. A scene always takes shape in my mind with two or more people having a conversation. I put the dialogue to paper and then add the physical setting, background details, emotions, inner monologue and body language. It’s the only way I know how to write. As I’ve …
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Walking the Tightrope: Embodying yesteryear, while embracing today’s reader

When you write historical fiction, you face great scrutiny. The tiniest mistake, or an over abundance of details, and you will generate comments. Angry heated comments. In a sense, you are always walking a tightrope between crafting authentic sounding prose and creating intelligible prose. One wrong foot and everything comes crashing down. If you want …
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You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy: How to use literature to build your fiction vocabulary

The ability to mass produce books gave birth to the popular novel, the Bronte Sisters, George Sand and perhaps one of the best-loved novelists of all time, Jane Austen. Since Austen’s first book was released over two centuries ago, people have studied her work. We love her books because they’re packed with social humor and …
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