Advice – Page 6 – Ellis Morning's Blog

“WHAT do you WANT?” Use Motivation To Anchor Your Rewrites

April 21, 2014 Ellis Morning Comments 0 Comment

Pictured: my job as a business analyst. I’ve learned editing is a cycle of dashed hopes. “This next chapter won’t need much work at all- hooray!” Then I reread it, and uh-oh! Spider-sense tingling. A character acted dumb for the sake of plot, or something I thought would be good feels awkward. I always trust my niggling bad feelings. Time to reassess and rewrite. Again. Reluctance and dread soon pale against an escalating panic. What do I change? How? Is…

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Be A Beta-Star, Part II: Getting Great Feedback

April 14, 2014 Ellis Morning Comments 1 comment

Last week, I wrote about giving the best feedback possible. Now it’s time to discuss receiving great feedback. No, this isn’t about everyone kissing your butt! It’s about putting aside your ego and lovingly beating the crap out of your work until it’s better than you ever imagined. Some of this advice complements ideas from the last post, but as a writer soliciting feedback, your job is more involved. Not only do you have to gather it, you also have…

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Be A Beta-Star, Part I: Giving Great Feedback

April 7, 2014 Ellis Morning Comments 2 comments

(Image credit: texturezoom.com) Beta-reading not only provides an opportunity to help others, but also exercises your creative muscle, which aids you in your own writing. It’s a true honor and privilege whenever you’re asked to be a beta-reader. It’s even better to be a trusted beta-reader, someone whose opinion others repeatedly rely on when developing their ideas. Here are some tips for giving the best feedback possible: Be Honest. This, first and foremost. Don’t have the time to devote to…

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Does Your Dialogue Pass The Cringe Test?

March 31, 2014 Ellis Morning Comments 0 Comment

If not, at least the rest of us will get a good laugh out of it! I don’t have to tell you the importance of good dialogue. People quote memorable lines from all sorts of works, all the time. They’re assimilated into our culture, and live on well after the writer him- or herself. You know what else we quote, though? Memorably bad lines. So let’s make sure your dialogue stays in the “good” category, shall we? Lots of things…

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Word Abuse: Accentuate Your Bad Habits

March 17, 2014 Ellis Morning Comments 2 comments

I’m in the throes of heavy editing at present, still trying to hammer out a process that works best for me. If there’s one thing I’ve learned thus far, it’s that even after you think you’ve gotten your prose as pretty as it can possibly be, there’s something wicked lurking in there to which you’re completely oblivious. One example is unintentional repetition of certain words and sentence structures. I didn’t know it until recently, but I abuse the hell out…

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Bad At Imagery? Your Characters Can Help!

March 10, 2014 Ellis Morning Comments 0 Comment

Ah, the unearthly blue lakes of the Swiss Alps. What a great setting to include in your story! Problem is, how do you describe it in words and achieve the same breathtaking effect? Trick question. You shouldn’t be describing anything. Your point-of-view character, or your narrator, communicates with the reader. The first step toward good imagery is describing the scene the way s/he would describe it. This is invaluable early in the story for establishing the world and revealing insight…

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9 Universal Tips for Describing Your Characters

March 3, 2014 Ellis Morning Comments 0 Comment

(Image credit: Leadershipcriteria Clipart) Character descriptions are one area where there’s no agreement on a single best approach. Everyone has different desires and expectations. Some writers paint vivid, exacting pictures of each character, down to eye and hair color. Some readers love this, and have trouble “seeing” the characters in their minds without those details. My approach, as a writer and reader, is the opposite. I prefer to describe only what’s vital to understanding the characters and plot. When I…

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Writing Good Intros: Don’t!

February 24, 2014 Ellis Morning Comments 2 comments

The most exposition any film ever needs- but this film was so well crafted that even if this crawl had been left out, you could’ve easily followed the plot. Think of your favorite movie. Play out the opening scene in your head. You can see it now: there’s the protagonist, crossing the room to sit down on a chair in the center of the set. She/He faces you, then spends the next forty minutes explaining who s/he is, what her/his…

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The Terror of Being Read

February 17, 2014 Ellis Morning Comments 0 Comment

(Photo credit: David Niblack, Imagebase.net. Half-assed creepy filtering by me!) My stomach knots up. My chest constricts. I’m stuck in a permanent cringe of humiliation, and can’t bear to be in the same room. I seek distraction from a book or video game, but the horrid, I-could-just-die anxiety doesn’t go away until it’s over. Am I on deck to give a big speech? Standing trial? No. My spouse is reading part of my manuscript for critique. It’s ridiculous. The whole…

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Dear Inner Editor: Shut Up And Let Me Write!

February 10, 2014 Ellis Morning Comments 0 Comment

(Now witness the full spectrum of Ellis’ Editing Pens of DOOM!) I don’t know where my 24×7, hyper-critical inner editor came from, but I have some theories. I’m super self-critical with everything I do, for one. For another, I like spelling and grammar. Although I chose an academic path rife with proofs, derivatives, and computer programs, I always scored higher on verbal aptitude tests than math or science ones. Also, I grew up in a house where one parent wasn’t…

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