Writing 101 Redux: There, Their, They're

Some writing lessons deserve to be repeated -- a lot. 

One set of words that cause many authors to struggle is there, their and they're. Learn the difference with today's Throwback Thursday Writing 101 tip, and don't get your words wrong anymore.

Writing 101: Skipping Time

One of the first books I ever loved follows the first-person perspective of a single character for about three years, and it’s so rich in detail that you live practically every day with the heroine. Except for that weird chapter that begins with a shocking sentence. In that sentence, the author skips ahead an entire year. Skipping time is an often-used fiction device, and it’s often jarring and upsetting. That’s probably because authors rarely do it really well.

Flashing Forward

In the book I’m making an example of, the narrator carefully details a year while living inside a very strange environment. The reader sees every detail, thought and spoken word unfold. I don’t think a single day is left out. Then all of a sudden, a year flies by. It’s just one sentence, and the first year took many chapters. No matter how you want to read it, that’s a jarring change of pace. It takes a few paragraphs to get back into the flow of things, after that. If your book is strong enough, you can always get over a rough spot.

...But why would you want to have a rough spot?

Writing 101: Repeating Words

If you write long enough, you’re going to develop a stable of favorite words. I use “clearly” all the time and describe things as “gray” way too often. When you edit your books, you should also be checking to see how often you’re repeating words. Too much repetition ruins the flow of the book and ends up becoming distracting...becoming distracting.

Clearly, Repetition is Bad

It’s really easy to fall into patterns when you write a lot. Scene structure, dialogue and your narrative voice can start to become formulaic, and you may find yourself repeating words. It’s a bad writing habit that you can’t always break.

You can, however, edit it.

Author, Interrupted

It was the second of July in the year 1961, and Ernest Hemingway was famous. He was a well-loved, bestselling American novelist and one of the world's most celebrated storytellers. This is why so many people cannot fathom why Hemingway woke from his bed that morning at 7, walked to his storage room and took out a shotgun. He placed the barrel of the gun against his forehead, and fired. It was a tragic ending to the story of an adored author.

The Hemingway Curse

At first, his wife claimed the gunshot was accidental. He'd been cleaning the weapon, she said. Finally, she admitted that she believed he had intentionally killed himself. It didn't make any sense. Hemingway was larger than life. He was a world traveler, a bullfighter, a hunter of big game, a man's man and an amazing writer. Why would such a man end it all when he was so successful and so admired by the world?

Cover Reveal: Saltwater Secrets, Book 2

Death and the Deep, Book 2 in the Saltwater Secrets trilogy comes out this September!

Writing 101 Redux: Quotes and Song Lyrics

Adding quotes and song lyrics to your book is a great way to convey certain moods and feelings. It' s a great way to set the stage. But is it legal?

Get the answer in today's Throwback Thursday Writing 101 tip, and find out all the legalities of the quotes and lyrics you want to use.

Writing 101: When Characters Grow Backwards

As you experience things in life, you learn and change because of them. This happens to the best book characters, too. Great books have character development...but there’s no rule that your character always has to improve as a person. Sometimes, characters end up growing backwards before they can start moving forward.

Lessons Learned

As an author, it’s your job to put your characters through awful situations. Give them what they want and take it away. Make them fall and hurt themselves at the wrong time. Reveal a terrible betrayal. Some characters take in all this badness and become better people because of it. But, some don’t. People don’t always improve through life. Some of them pick up more flaws as they go along. This is what I like to call growing backwards. It can be a lot of fun to write, if you can make your readers hang around to read it.

Writing 101: How Do You Compare to Other Authors?

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I like to delve into the background of famous authors. I want to know when they started writing, how they got published, if they did anything weird in their spare time, even how much money they had when they died. But that’s a bad use of my time, because I inevitably start comparing myself to those other authors. Do you ever catch yourself doing the same thing?

Stacking Up

For a little while there, I was totally obsessed with author origin stories. One author in an interview talked about how she started writing a short story. Then, she said, the next thing she knew she had a 200,000-word book. Yeah, right. Reading stories like this used to make me feel bad, because I sweat to put 200 words on the page most days. So I stopped comparing myself to them. And now, I feel better.