The Very Beginning: Your Opening Scene
In this excerpt from Chapter 1: The Very Beginning: Your Opening Scene from Nancy Kress’s Elements of Fiction Writing: Beginnings, Middles, & Ends, you’ll learn:
- why it’s so important to establish your story’s promise ...
Beginnings, Middles, & Ends
Find out more about Elements of Fiction Writing: Beginnings, Middles, & Ends by Nancy Kress.- Hook readers, agents, and editors in the first three paragraphs.
- Make ...
Q&A With Nancy Kress
Read an exclusive Q&A with Nancy Kress, author of Elements of Fiction Writing: Beginnings, Middles, & Ends.Draw Characters From The Strongest Sources
Every drama requires a cast. The cast may be so huge or it may be an intimate cast of two. Where do you get these people, and how do you know they’ll make good characters? Here are the four key sources you'll need to create great characters.
by Nancy Kress
by Nancy Kress
Creating Characters: 4 Simple Exercises
Here are 4 simple exercises to help you invent characters for your fiction.
by Nancy Kress
How to create personalities that keep readers captivated
Techniques and Exercises for Crafting Dynamic Characters and Effective Viewpoints
by Nancy Kress
Dynamic Characters
How to create personalities that keep readers captivated
Write Great Fiction: Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint
Techniques and Exercises for Crafting Dynamic Characters and Effective Viewpoints
Confessions of a Know-It-All
Omniscient point of view can lend richness and flexibility to your story—but only if you use it with a disciplined and purposeful hand.
Wielding the Scalpel: What to Cut From Your Story
Got padding? Read on to find out how small-scale surgery can transform your draft into lean, salable fiction.
Start Your Fiction Off With a Bang
Begin your story with a bang rather than with long-winded exposition, and your audience will keep reading. Here are some tips you can use to avoid "bad" beginnings:
You’re Now Entering the Twilight Zone
Not all fiction attempts to mimic reality. Successful nonmimetic fiction employs the strange, the surreal and exaggeration to make its point.
Learn to Write for a Target Audience
Literary or commercial? How your fiction is perceived will affect how it is packaged, marketed and, ultimately, read by an audience.
How to Write Successful Endings
Don't let your fiction get tossed in the wastebasket because the ending "didn't quite work." Follow Nancy Kress' advice for choosing a successful ending based on the style of your work.
Who’s a Stereotype?
Enhance character stereotypes or play against them by using your readers' expectations to improve characterization.
Show and Tell
To show or to tell isn't a battle of good versus evil, but the skilled storyteller knows how to play each to maximum effect.
The Importance of the Right Word
Word choice: It''s writing''s core. Although it takes practice to always use the exact right word, be sure to keep these guidelines in mind.
Crowd Control
How many characters belong in a scene, a story and a reader's head? Find out how to avoid fictional overpopulation.
3 Tips for Writing Successful Flashbacks
Most writers try to avoid flashbacks, but if you just can't resist sending your readers back in time, fiction columnist Nancy Kress has some advice. Kress explains what makes a flashback work, and how to perfect your own time traveling techniques.
Let Me Make This Perfectly Clear
Clarity, the often unnoticed foundation of your writing, is crucial if you want readers to finish your story. Learn to see what the reader sees.
Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire
Why bad things should happen to good plots: Creating problems for your characters keeps your plot moving and your readers entertained.
Prose Primer
The building blocks of effective prose are simpler than you think.
The Perfect Place
Where your characters live can tell volumes about who they are.
Your Opening Quest
Hook readers from the start with an intriguing question.
Hold Them Back
Your fictional characters experience many emotions, but only one is absolutely essential to plot. Here's how to fuel your story with frustration.