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Should I Write in First Person or Third Person Point of View?

#WriteTips | Should I Write in First Person or Third Person Point of View?

Yes 🙂 You should definitely write your novel in first person or third person point of view. But which do you choose, and what are the other alternatives? Let’s look at the alternatives first. Depending on who you ask, there are between three and twenty-seven different points of view in fiction. No, I can’t imagine …

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Writing Strong Interior Monologue

Write Tip | Writing Strong Interior Monologue (an #AuthorToolBoxBlogHop post)

This post is part of the monthly Author ToolBox Blog Hop, organised by Raimey Gallant. We now have over 40 blogs participating. To find more Blog Hop posts: Click here to visit the main Blog Hop page Click here to find our posts on Twitter Click here to find our Pinterest board Writing Strong Interior Monologue …

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Three Alternatives to Action Beats

Write Tips | Three Alternatives to Action Beats

Over the last three weeks, I’ve discussed various aspects of writing dialogue and dialogue tags. I’ve covered: Tips for writing realistic dialogue in fiction Why “said” is the most effective speaker attribution Tips for writing strong action beats Today I’m looking at three more options for writing dialogue tags: Body language Dialogue cues Interior monologue …

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Three Tips for Writing Strong Action Beats

Dialogue Tags | Three Tips for Writing Strong Action Beats

Last week, I discussed why “said” is the most effective speaker attribution. No, I’m not a fan of creative dialogue tags (she apologised unrepentantly). But using “said” all the time can get boring and repetitive, and we don’t want our fiction to be boring or repetitive. What can we do? Fortunately, there are several alternatives …

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Why "Said" is the most effective speaker attribution

WriteTips | Why “Said” is the Most Effective Speaker Attribution

Last week, I shared some tips for writing believable dialogue, given that dialogue is one of the main ways we can show plot movement and characterisation in a novel. But no discussion around dialogue is complete without adding advice on dialogue tags. Dialogue tags are how we indicate to readers which character is speaking. There …

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5 Tips for Ensuring Your Novel has Sustainable Conflict

Writing 101 | 5 Tips for Ensuring Your Novel has Sustainable Conflict

Plot and structure are two of the foundations of a great novel. I have previously discussed the high-level structure of a novel—the three-act structure—and the micro structure—scene structure. But knowing how to write a great scene or structure a novel is no guarantee of a great novel. Great novels need a plot. And conflict. I …

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Punctuation in Fiction

Punctuation 101 | Other Punctuation in Fiction

Over the last two weeks we’ve covered comma usage and the punctuation of dialogue in fiction. Today I’m going to discuss seven less common punctuation marks, and how they’re used in modern fiction: Brackets (Parentheses) Colon Ellipsis Em-Dash En-Dash Hyphen Semicolon Note that I am focussing on the use of these punctuation marks in modern …

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