Timothy's Thoughts

W ith thousands to choose from, it’s hard to pick a plot device and call it a favorite, but today I want to talk about five plot devices that I have a hard time passing up. I won’t say that I read every story I find with these plot devices, but base your story around one of these and you’ll be a whole lot closer to convincing me to buy your book. Secret Identity You know these stories. There is Superman , Cinderella , spy stories, undercover cops and Hannah Montana . What can I say? These stories are everywhere. They even show up in the Bible. Abraham tried to pass his wife off as his sister. Tamar once played the part of a harlot to get pregnant by her father-in-law, Judah. There’s just something I find interesting about stories where people pretend to be people they are not and as popular as some of them are, I think other people must too. I figure it has something to do with the inherent conflict in the story. Premature Marriage When a couple get married before they fall in love, wh...

T here is a difference of opinion about Speaker Attributes . Some authors, such Brandilyn Collins make a point of avoiding speaker attributes . These authors will often replace a speaker attribute with an action beat. For example, The Martian said, “Take me to your leader.” would become The Martian pointed with his three fingered hand. “Take me to your leader.” On the other hand, some authors would say that this line would be better written as The Martian pointed with his three fingered hand as he said, “Take me to your leader.” The problem that people have with speaker attributes is that in some exchanges they can be tiresome: “Give it to me,” he said. “No,” she said. “Why not?” he asked. “Because,” she said. A page full of that and the reader will quickly grow tired. For that matter, the author will grow tired of writing the word said . Let’s take that same exchange and rewrite it so those speaker attributes aren’t so tedious: Bob and April were walking to class one spring day....

W hat is the best advice you have ever been given about writing? It seems like this question shows up every time someone interviews an author. Sometimes it is reversed as, What it the worst advice you have ever been given about writing? I’ve tried to think, if someone were to ask either of those question, how would I answer? There plenty of tidbits of advice out there. Here are a few I’ve run across: Write what you know: Some writers call this good advice and others call it bad. Mostly, I think it depends on how you interpret it. If you take it to mean that all you can write about is an author sitting at a computer, pounding out a novel, then yeah, its bad advice. It becomes good advice when we talk about emotions and motives. When writing about an emotion, such as grief or anger, draw on a situation were you felt the same feelings. Write to the middle: This is a great piece of advise. Do you have a problem with sagging middles? Write to the middle. The reason middles sag is becaus...