Writing Archives - Page 40 of 42 - Home For Fiction

Writing

How to Pick a Title for Your Novel

March 4, 2018

As a fiction author, perhaps finding a title for your novel isn’t very difficult. After all, quite often writers begin with the title as a first thing. Of course it might later change, but rarely does a writer work for long on something called “untitled”. However, picking just any title and picking the right title can be two crucially different things. There are several aspects that affect your choice of a book title, and today we’ll talk precisely about that. In this article, I’ll show you how to pick a title for your novel.

First we’ll see what makes a title good or bad, and what “good” means in this context. Then I’ll give you some concrete tips on finding the perfect title for your book. There are basically good news and bad news: The good news is that only you can know whether a title for your book is the right one. You will just know it, once you think of it. The bad news, maddeningly enough, is that… only you can know whether a title for your book is the right one. I will show you the how’s and why’s on how to pick a title for your novel, but the choice can only be yours.

How to Pick a Title for Your Novel — Finding a title for your book can be difficult. Recommendations can assist, but nobody but you knows when the right title quasi-magically has arrived

(more…)

Types of Fiction Characters: How to Use Them in Your Novel

February 26, 2018

Fiction Writing Tips, Writing

characters, comparing, experience, fiction, literature, writing

To speak of character categorization might be a self-evident matter for some authors, and yet it might appear nonsensical to others. Surely, a writer of the latter group might say, you can’t just divide every character of every novel into just a few categories? The truth is neither “yes” nor “no” – or, if you’d rather see the glass half-full, it’s both. It’s true, that a skillful author can make the most stereotypical character appear as unique and original. At the same time, many character functions are similar. More counter-intuitively, perhaps, character functions need to be similar for reasons we will see further below. Today I’ll tell you a few things about the various types of fiction characters.

I’ll show you why it’s important to recognize, understand, and use these character categories. This article is based on various established sources (for further reading I’d recommend Vladimir Propp’s Morphology of the Folktale), on my academic expertise, as well as on my own writing experience.

types of fiction characters — They all serve a role!

(more…)

Narrative Endings: How to Pick the Right One

February 3, 2018

Fiction Writing Tips, Writing

creativity, ending, fiction, writing

They say that all good things must come to an end. I don’t believe in endings, as I don’t believe in beginnings. Blame my academic background, but I prefer to focus on duration and temporal chunks. Having said that, a novel has to end in some way, because there is a physical limit to how many pages you can put out there. But are narrative endings and physical endings one and the same? (Sneak preview: no)

In today’s post I’ll share with you an important secret about narrative endings: if you do things right, there’s one and only one ending that suits your book of fiction. I’ll give you the details below, but basically it goes like this: if you can’t pick that one ending, whether because it feels wrong or because you can’t find it, it means your structure is wrong. This might sound awful, but see the flip side of it: if your ending feels right, it usually means the entire narrative preceding it is also right.

(more…)