#writingtips Archives - Megan Short | Inspirational Romantic Suspense Author

Polarisation of worldviews

You’d have to be living as a hermit, St. Anthony style, to not know there’s a polarisation of viewpoints at present. Friendships, customers, and family relationships have been lost. Dinner conversations have become tense. Rather than lament this, I think it is an opportunity for writers for several reasons.

Emotion is character

Do you feel emotion? Are you an “emotional” person? Do you wear your heart on your sleeve? Do people criticise you for being “too emotional”? Depending upon your cultural background, the level of acceptable emotions will vary greatly. But, by the time we become adults, we’ve come some way to controlling our emotions within those cultural boundaries. Well, hopefully.

Revise and resubmit

For those who have been in this writing game for a while, you will be familiar with the “revise and resubmit” (or R&R as I call them). The horrible irony that this will give neither rest nor relaxation, but hopefully will allow your reader to ultimately enjoy the book—like that lady in the picture, having some actual R&R.

Encouragement in pain

During a recent sermon on encouraging each other in our faith, the minister said something that really landed with me. When we comfort others who are going through difficult times, rather than using platitudes or our own words, why not use the words of our Lord? He has experienced everything that we are experiencing, and He understands what we are going through.

The central question

A few months ago my agent asked me to write a covering submission for my novel. Honestly, I thought that once I had an agent, the days of writing a covering anything were over! Turns out there is no way around writing a synopsis, a blurb, or any other part of the covering submission. At this point, it wouldn’t even surprise me if J.K. Rowling still has to.

Finding their voice

Of recent times, I’ve been critiquing the work of a range of writers—from first timers to the multi-published. What is often the difference between me slogging through, and wanting to read more, is the characterisation. If you’ve been following along, you know this blog harps on about character. But something happened that made me remember the importance of character voice.

Exposition exposed

Does your reader need to know your protagonist’s backstory and other vital information? Yes. Should you dump the entire shebang in one go? You already know the answer to that. But how to achieve that sprinkling of salt so perfect a master chef couldn’t fault you? Read on.

Integrated elements

A few months back I explored the “setup” and “payoff” elements that create a satisfying story. As you can read back in that article, it’s non-optional. Integrated elements however, work at a high level to make the story three dimensional. They’re not mandatory, but they make your story pop.

ChatGPT and simile

I’ve been hearing a lot about ChatGPT, and when I complained to a (non-writer) friend I was struggling with a chapter, he said “just get ChatGPT to write it”. Ha! Normally I’m a bit of a luddite, but I figured if it’s what the kids are doing, I should give it a go. While ChatGPT is definitely hit and miss, you can use it as a tool similar to a thesaurus.

Unity of opposites

An element of literature and film I find a lot of fun is the power of two completely opposite characters being brought together by a common event or goal. Once there, they find themselves in a scenario where they want precisely the opposite things.