Emma Stewart Writes

Writer, Proofreader, Editor and Cat Lady

Category: Writing Tips and Advice (Page 1 of 3)

Writing tips and advice

Respect the Humble Comma

May 6, 2024 /

The Comma is Important

Commas are important punctuation marks. If nothing else, they let you breathe! Commas are a short pause in a sentence, compared to a full stop or period. The comma is essential in writing but often misused. So let’s look at some of the rules about comma usage.

Lists and the ‘Oxford Comma’

Writing a list of more than three items in a sentence? Commas are used to separate the items. The final two items have ‘and’ or ‘or’ between them. A lot of publications will not use a comma after the ‘and’ or ‘or’. This is the “Oxford Comma”.

The Oxford comma,or serial comma, gives clarity. It is sometimes controversial, but there are definitely cases where not using it will cause confusion for the reader. See the example below:

“The milkshake flavours are banana, strawberry, chocolate, cookies and cream and vanilla.”

“The milkshake flavours are banana, strawberry, chocolate, cookies and cream, and vanilla.”

See the difference? It’s subtle, and most people would figure out that it is “cookies and cream” and not two separate flavours called “cookies” and “cream”. It is confusing, especially if your writing is being read by someone whose first language isn’t English.

Commas are used to separate two adjectives in a sentence, but only if the order of the adjectives can be switched and still make sense. The trick is if you put “and” in between the adjectives and it still makes sense, then use a comma.

The Dreaded Comma Splice

The comma splice occurs when two independent clauses are joined by a comma, when they really should be separate sentences using a full stop. This can lead to a run-on sentence. Here’s an example.

“She opened the fridge, her phone started to ring.”

The two clauses are not related to each other. So, you can rewrite it as two separate sentences.

“She opened the fridge. Her phone started to ring.”

Or you can use a connecting word to join the clauses together and use a comma at the end of the first clause.

“She opened the fridge, but her phone started to ring.”

As a rule, if the subject isn’t used in front of a second verb, you don’t need a comma. You might need it for clarity if there is ambiguity about who is performing the second verb. You may need a comma before the word “because” for the same kind of reason.

An introductory phrase or dependent clause needs a comma after it. Such as this example:

“If you don’t know, I can’t help you.”

Asides and Extra Information

Adding an aside to a sentence with extra but not essential information, requires the use of commas. A comma comes before the aside, and one after it. This is an appositive comma.

“Elaine, my girlfriend, has been there twice.”

It is especially important if the subject is clearly identified already, because the additional description isn’t essential. Avoid ambiguity where you can. See these two examples:

“My girlfriend Elaine has been there.”

“My girlfriend, Elaine, has been there.”

The first example suggests the speaker has more than one girlfriend and is specifying which one he is talking about. The second example indicates that the speaker only has one girlfriend so her name is additional information. This rule is often misused and can lead to confusion.

Other Comma Uses

Commas are used around words that introduce a sentence or expressions that interrupt the flow of the sentence. Things like “Well,” or “No,” at the beginning of a sentence. Same thing if you have a phrase like “by the way” or “however”.

Writing dialogue is a big one for comma usage. I’ll cover that in more detail in the future as I’d like to do a series on writing dialogue properly. But introducing direct quotes requires a comma before the opening speech mark. For dialogue tags after the quotation, the comma comes at the end of the last word of the quote.

Commas need to be used to separate a statement from a contrasting statement in a sentence, or a statement combined with a question. You would also use it before and after something like ‘e.g.’ or ‘etc.’

Don’t Underestimate the Importance

Commas are an essential punctuation, important for preventing confusion in writing. A well-known example is this sentence: “Let’s eat grandma.” Oof, cannibalism is rather frowned upon these days. “Let’s eat, grandma.” Much better. If you want proof of how important a comma is to the meaning of a sentence, try this one on for size.

“A woman without her man is nothing.”

Where do you think you could put a comma and how would it affect this sentence?

“A woman, without her man, is nothing.”

“A woman, without her, man is nothing.”

The first version suggests that a woman is nothing unless she has a man. The second suggests that a man is nothing without a woman. So comma placement really does matter if you want your reader to get the right meaning for a sentence. 

Thanks for reading, I hope this has been helpful. For more details and rules about commas, check the Blue Book of Grammar section here. It even has a quiz to check your knowledge. For more writing content, subscribe to my blog. I cover writing, proofreading and editing subjects, as well as analysing stories in various media. I also have a YouTube channel where I play video games and discuss the stories, lore and world-building. For more punctuation rules in dialogue, see this post.

I’m Back! Emma’s Writing Again!

February 8, 2024 / / 0 Comments

I’m Back to Writing

It’s been a while, but I’m back to writing again. I’ve been away for a while, due to a few things in my personal life. I’m a chronic illness girl, unfortunately, and my health has been pretty bad the last few months. I’ve not been able to work on things I want to. Things have improved a little and I am in the process of starting some new treatment for my autoimmune condition which will hopefully make a difference going forward.

So, what can you expect going forward? I’m working on getting back into my writing and editing work. I have been able to write more on my novel, and I am about two thirds through the first draft which is exciting. I am hoping to have the second draft finished by summer. I’ve also got an idea for another book in the works.

For the blog, I am going to continue covering proofreading and editing topics, and I am going to delve into storytelling and characters as well. I would like to write about how storytelling works outside the world of books, particularly in video games. I’d also like to cover some more controversial topics, such as diversity and LGBTQIA+ representation in stories.

I am considering setting up a newsletter as well, to keep everyone updated on my progress in my writing and other things I’ve been up to. I would like to eventually start producing video content on my socials and on YouTube. I’ll be talking about my favourite characters, stories and analysis of effective techniques in different media formats. With the new Fallout TV series in April, I will start with talking about one of my favourite video game franchises a lot! Watch this space!

Follow along for updates and subscribe to the blog to get an update whenever a new post goes up.

lunar eclipse

Antagonists: The Bad Guy?

September 7, 2023 / / 0 Comments
lunar eclipse

Antagonists: Always the Villain?

On Monday we talked about the protagonist of the story. Today we look at their opposition, the antagonist. Villains are always antagonists, but not every antagonist is a villain. Essentially the antagonist is the one who is working against your protagonist and getting in their way.

The antagonist does not need to be a person, you can see other things creating obstacles for your protagonist, whether it is rules or a force of nature or something like that. If it is a person, then generally they’ll do something to affect your protagonist, whether on purpose or not. Essentially they are involved in the challenge your protagonist needs to overcome.

Villain

The classic antagonist is the villain of the piece. The tyrannical leader, the arch-enemy of your hero or a criminal who is doing something morally reprehensible. Not all villains are pure evil, though. Some are, for the sake of power, hatred, greed or pure chaos and destruction. You know the kind who tend to go: “Bwahahahaha, you’ll never beat me, hero!”

However, some villains are not so clear cut. We can even end up feeling sympathy for them. They could have a reason for doing what they do, and their actions might well be understandable. We may not be able to justify their actions, but we can perhaps understand their reasons for making the choices they do. This is what’s known as a ‘sympathetic villain’ and a good example is Magneto from X-Men. His experiences in a concentration camp taught him how evil humans were, and convinced him that mutants were always going to be worth saving over humans.

Non-Human Antagonists

As mentioned, not all antagonists are people. A force of nature or even fate itself can be the antagonist. Your protagonist may need to get an artifact from a hidden cave, but when he gets there the cave has collapsed. This could be natural deterioration or an earthquake that has made the task more difficult. Then nature itself is playing the role of the antagonist.

It could also be a creature or beast of some kind that is just trying to do what it does. Godzilla is a classic example. Society itself makes for a good antagonist, as seen in the Hunger Games trilogy. We see President Snow as the villain, but really, it’s the entire society and setting that is the real problem. We see Katniss realise this at the end, which is why she chooses to walk away from it all.

Be Your Own Antagonist

One of the most interesting versions is where the protagonist is their own antagonist. It’s quite common in storytelling, where the conflict is internal within the protagonist. They are holding themselves back in some way, be it due to their own grief or some flaw of theirs that they need to learn to overcome. You can see this in the narrator in the Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe.

Of course, you’ll find that usually this type of antagonist isn’t the only antagonist of the story. There may well be external forces as well, and it forces your protagonist to deal with their own internal conflict while also facing an external problem.

Conclusion

So that covers antagonists and the different kinds you might encounter in stories. I hope that it was helpful. On Friday we’ll take a look at secondary characters, those that support your protagonist and antagonist and give more life to your stories. I hope you’ll join me for that. Until next time!

woman holding black flag
Photo by Engin Akyurt on Pexels.com

Protagonist: I Need A Hero!

September 4, 2023 / / 0 Comments
woman holding black flag
Photo by Engin Akyurt on Pexels.com

What is a ‘protagonist’?

The main character is called the protagonist. This is the main focus of the story, it is their journey we are reading about. We learn the most about the protagonist, and we witness their development as they navigate the plot. You can have more than one protagonist, of course, that’s perfectly okay to do. Especially if it’s a romance novel or if romance is a big part of the storyline, you will generally have two protagonists in your story.

So, the protagonist is the hero? Not always. Every hero is a protagonist in their own story, but not every protagonist is a hero. A hero is a specific kind of protagonist. Typically their actions save the girl/town/world/galaxy or whatever setting you have going on. Some of the best stories have a clear hero, from Odysseus and Beowulf to Luke Skywalker and Katniss Everdeen.

Of course, there has been a surge in comic book movies in the last 15 years, with Marvel and DC both bringing many of their superheroes onto the silver screen. Each of their heroes has their own stories going on, with the larger group movies intersecting these stories at different points to tie them all together.

Anti-Hero Protagonist

Not every protagonist has the typical qualities that make them a hero. Indeed, some of them actively don’t want to be seen as a hero (looking at you, Deadpool.) This is referred to as an ‘anti-hero’ protagonist, see the Wikipedia page here. An antihero will have qualities that are considered less than heroic, where they do the morally right thing but for reasons that are morally ambiguous. They often have traits associated with the ‘Dark Triad’ of personality traits.

The Dark Triad is a set of personality traits that are considered non-pathological but offensive in psychology. This includes aspects of narcissism (pride, a lack of empathy), Machiavellianism (manipulation and exploitation) and psychopathy (impulsivity, selfishness.) Some psychologists even add a fourth trait, sadism, the enjoyment of cruelty and the suffering of others.

The antihero is very popular in modern media, a lot of people will root for the antihero and it can be seen in the success of a number of movies and TV series. Modern anti-heroes include Deadpool, but characters like Tony Soprano, Dr Gregory House and Walter White are all antihero protagonists as well.

A Step Too Far? The Villain Protagonist

The next step up is to make the protagonist the villain. This is where the morally questionable actions are not justified in any way so it is clear that they are the ‘bad guy’. A good modern example is in the video game Undertale, which has a great meta-narrative about video game protagonists in general.

Usually in an RPG, you assume you fight monsters to gain experience and money. Undertale rewards you for not doing this and remaining pacifist throughout the game. You can complete a ‘Genocide’ run where you kill everything you come across and eventually no monsters come near you.

Choose to do this, and you become the villain of the story. To the point where the main antagonist supports you, and one of the major characters calls you out on it and tries to stop you. I won’t go into too much detail to spoil it, although I imagine most people know the story by now. But the game punishes you for becoming the villain, with a lot of the best content gone.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading about protagonists with me. On Wednesday we’ll look at antagonists and their functions in fictional narrative, and why they can be the more interesting characters at times. I hope you’ll join me for that. Subscribe below to get notified when a post goes live, and find me on my social media channels. If you want to read more on characters, take a look at this post here. Until next time!

green trees on cliff

Character Relationships: No Man Is An Island

September 2, 2023 / / 0 Comments
green trees on cliff

Character Relationships

Let’s talk about character relationships. As the quote in the title says: ‘No man is an island.’ What does that mean? Every single person has some kind of relationship that connects them to other people. Even a hermit living in a cave in the middle of nowhere will have relatives or something somewhere in the world. It takes two people to make a baby, so everyone has biological parents.

That’s not to say everyone has relationships with their biological parents. Adoption, being orphaned or just cutting them out of your life because they were horrible people, there’s many reasons. Outside blood relatives, we have friends, partners, people we work with, all kinds of connections with people. For many of us, the people we choose to keep around us are the most important.

“The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.”

Remember that? Most people know the shortened version which is supposed to tell us that familial bonds are more important than those we make ourselves, but the true quote has the opposite meaning. So, when it comes to your character, relationships are important. We need to know the kind of people they associate with and why. So it’s an important aspect of character creation.

Family

Consider your characters family. Who are their parents? Do they have siblings? Is there another family member important to them, like a grandparent or aunt or cousin? What is the relationship like now, and is that different from when the character was younger? What kind of influence did these relatives have on the character and how has it helped shape their personality?

It’s worth detailing this in the early history section, but I also like to add a section dedicated to important relationships in my character profiles. For example Shaine, my protagonist in my current novel, had a great relationship with her parents. Her upbringing was full of love and support and she learned a lot from both of her parents. Alonso on the other hand, never met his parents at all. His father was a ‘client’ of his mothers, and his mother died shortly after he was born. Another character introduced later on has a sibling he has lost contact with and wants to find.

I’m not suggesting you build a huge family tree and go back ten generations (unless this is important to your plot!) but if you really want to, you can. At the very least though, you should have at least the relatives your character has met during their lifetime and a little bit about the relationship, how they got along, if there was any conflict there, that kind of thing.

Friends

Friends are important. They are the family we choose, in a way. Even the most introverted person will have a couple of people they consider friends. Most of us will have different kinds of friends. Close friends we can trust with anything, work friends we get on well with at our jobs, more casual friends we hang out with in groups. Your characters should have the same thing. At least a couple of people who really matter to them.

Depending on your plot, you might not include these friends within the story but they could be there in the background. If they are involved, it’s a good way to demonstrate certain aspects of your main characters. Of course, there’s always room for your main character to make new friends along the way, and also for them to outgrow old friends as the plot changes them and makes them shift their priorities.

It’s okay to let go of old friendships if they no longer work for you. That applies in real life as well as in your characters lives. People change, life happens and sometimes you need to move on. I have had to make this decision in the past, and it’s tough but sometimes it’s best for both of you.

Romance and Love

Not everyone has to have a romantic partner. The single life can work perfectly well for some people. Others will have a partner, or have had long term partners in their past. Some people may have had a number of short casual relationships. All of these are valid. Bear in mind that not every relationship is going to be what some people consider ‘conventional’. Polyamory is a thing in real life, so it can absolutely exist in fiction. Different sexualities and relationship types are always a good thing to incorporate but make sure you understand what you’re doing so that you can represent these relationships accurately. Polyamorous relationships, where there are more than two partners, are built on trust and open communication. It should not be used as an excuse to cheat without getting into trouble for it.

It’s okay for your main character to have an established romantic relationship of some kind at the start of the book. Even if you are writing a romance. It’s also okay for them to be single and looking for a romance, or not looking. It all depends on the genre and plot. Obviously for romance stories, the development of a relationship is the whole point of the plot. In other genres, a romantic subplot of some kind adds some interest for the reader and it’s realistic. Even in a fantasy novel, a group of adventurers spending weeks together travelling for example, feelings can develop and it gives your readers something to root for.

Back to my current novel in progress, I haven’t decided if Shaine is going to find a romance subplot or not, but Alonso’s history comes back to bite them. He is pansexual, and he was in a long term relationship with another assassin. They had quite a messy breakup, and Alonso moved on, but his ex comes back to surprise him. It’s a minor detail, but it impacts how the surprise is handled and affects the characters. He may also find himself interested in a strapping young man they stumble across. We’ll have to see!

Conclusion

So remember to have a think about some of the important relationships in your characters life and include it in your characters profile as well as dropping it into the story where it makes sense to do so. These character relationships are important. The key thing for your readers is relatability and realism. Characters that are like real people, respond in ways that while maybe not optimal, are understandable and are relatable are the ones your reader will get really excited about.

That’s all for this week. Apologies that this one is a day late, but starting next week, I’d like to look in depth at some character archetypes and what they can bring to your stories, so hopefully you’ll join me for that. Subscribe below to get an email when a new post is live and follow me on social media for updates and behind the scenes. Until next time!

This is who I am

Personality Traits: Getting To Know Your Characters

August 30, 2023 / / 0 Comments
This is who I am

Personality Traits

Every character is a person (even if they’re not human!) and that means they have a personality that is uniquely theirs. Just like in real life, everyone has a handful of personality traits that dictate how they behave, how they speak and how they react to situations. For your main and supporting characters, you need to flesh this out quite a bit to make them real people that your readers will love, or love to hate, or feel some kind of way.

There needs to be a balance too. Personality traits can be generally divided into positive and negative traits. Every character should have some of each kind. Yes, your good guys need to have negative traits, and yes, your villains need to have positive traits. Don’t treat this as a box-ticking exercise either, the traits need to feel realistic and make sense in the context of your character’s history.

Where Do I Start?

Think about the characters role in the story. Are they a protagonist, with a goal to reach by the end of the plot? What is their goal? What do they need to overcome to achieve this goal? Then you can think of what traits they should have in order to attain this goal. Are they determined, so they will stop at nothing to reach their goal? Are they analytical, meaning they will assess and calculate the best plan possible? If they need help from someone, are they friendly and charismatic enough to convince this person to help them out?

Remember that even positive traits will have some downsides. Someone who is very determined can also be stubborn, refusing to change things based on new information or advice. Someone who is very friendly might not endear themselves to someone who is very antisocial and wary of strangers. Relate it back to the character’s history as well. Why are they so determined? Why are they so suspicious?

Negative traits can also have upsides. A character who is very suspicious and mistrustful will be harder to take advantage of or fall into a trap by trusting someone. The downside is obviously that they are very guarded and find it hard to form relationships with other people. This kind of trait comes from a past where they have been betrayed by people they trusted or mistreated by a parent or partner.

How To Show Personality Traits

When you’re writing prose, you obviously don’t want to list the traits of your character when you first introduce them. Remember what I talked about before, about introducing a new character. This is where the old ‘show, don’t tell’ advice comes into play. Personality traits will come with associated behaviours and responses. A mistrustful person will ask questions and not take what people say at face value. They will keep people at arms length and avoid revealing much personal detail in conversations.

Someone who is friendly will make small talk with people. They will speak kindly, offer up some information about them freely and make a point of remembering people’s names. They will smile a lot and have open body language, keep their promises and stop to help someone without being asked.

Tone of voice and language choices will indicate personality traits in dialogue. People who are shy will speak quietly, hesitate and use filler words or sounds a lot more and will avoid speaking up in a group situation. A character who is surly and grouchy will snap at people, use one-word responses and commonly be sarcastic and snarky.

Remember that your characters may change over the course of the story and this should be reflected in how they act. One of the major plot points should be your protagonist overcoming a major character flaw in order to reach their goal. It might also be a big thing for your antagonist to overcome their negative traits in some way and see the error of their ways.

Resources and Methods

There’s a ton of good resources out there to help with this aspect of character creation. There’s also a few ways to approach character creation, so you should find the one that works best for you. It might help to plan out the character’s background a bit first. Then you can make a list of their positive and negative traits, relating them to early experiences and even making notes on behaviours and how they speak which will show these traits. You can then refer back to these notes when you are writing to make sure you are staying in character. It’s also important to compare these lists for your characters to highlight possible sources of conflict or relationship development between them that you can include in your writing. Because it’s not fun if the characters get along perfectly well all the time!

A few resources I have found are readily available online. There’s a series of books available as ebooks called Writers Helping Writers, by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. The Negative Trait Thesaurus and the Positive Trait Thesaurus are both really useful for this. There are chapters discussing how to write and use these traits for your characters and how to build characters, as well as a huge list of traits with definitions, possible causes, behaviours, thoughts, emotions, positive and negative aspects and examples. They also cover how a character can overcome a flaw and how a trait might cause conflict with other characters. These are so useful, and they have a bunch of other books covering settings, emotions and obstacles. I highly recommend them. You can check out their site here and find links to purchase their books. (Not an affiliate ad! I just really find their books helpful.)

Conclusion

Thank you for reading. I hope this has been a helpful introduction into personality traits and how to choose them. A good well rounded personality makes for a great and engaging character to read about. On Friday, we’ll take a look at relationships between characters, because as the saying goes, “No man is an island.” Subscribe below to get notified when that post goes live. Until next time!

greyscale photography of skeleton

Character Backgrounds: Skeletons in the Closet

August 29, 2023 / / 0 Comments
greyscale photography of skeleton

Character Backgrounds

This week, I would like to talk about character development. As an author, you should know your characters inside out, everything about them and all the skeletons in their closet. The best way to write genuine, believable characters is to make sure you know them inside out. For today, we’re going to look at character backgrounds and history.

Everyone has different methods, however, a lot of people get bogged down in their name, their appearance and a list of merits and flaws. That’s all important stuff, don’t get me wrong, but it is important to know their background. Every single one of us has a unique personality and pattern of behaviour. Our experiences shape who we are. All the good and bad things that happen to us, shape us into who we are. With every new experience, we change a little bit more. We learn from what happened before and we choose our behaviour accordingly.

What Happened To You?

One thing I like to do with my characters is write out a full and detailed bio for them. I’ve done this for years, I spent a lot of my early adulthood writing fanfiction and written roleplay. Anyone who has been one one of these roleplay message boards will have done a character application. The longest section should be the history section. A breakdown of the important events in that characters life, and the effect that these events had.

What this should do is explain their traits and their behaviours. Someone who has been bullied or abused early in life is not going to trust easily. Someone who grew up sheltered and hidden away from the world is likely to be gullible and easily led astray. What led them to the career choices they made? Why are they good at fighting? Were they trained, or did they learn by having no choice but to fight for survival? Do they have secrets or skeletons in their closet?

The history should lead up to who the character is at the beginning of the story. You then continue this throughout the story, shaping the character as the experiences of the plot continue to shape them. A lot of what you will write in the history section will not be included in the book, but little mentions here and there will make your character feel real to your reader. If it helps explain why your character does something a particular way, or why they react to a situation in an unexpected way, all the better. Here is a little bit from one of my character’s background in my current WIP.

How Alonso Became An Assassin

The young elf had spent his whole life in this brothel. He had been born here, his mother had died a couple of days after he was born. The women raised the orphans as a group, putting them to work in some fashion as soon as they were capable. At age seven, Alonso was responsible for cleaning, basic food preparation and clearing up dishes from the bar room.

The owner of the brothel was a horrible man, He was loud, temperamental and violent. Alonso hated him, as did the majority of the brothel’s inhabitants. One of the girls was cooking the owner’s meal in the kitchen one night. Alonso had been collecting glasses and plates from the bar room and was standing on a crate by the basin, washing them.

The owner had been served his meal, but was not happy as the bread had been burnt a little on the edge. Alonso could never understand complaining about food, unless it was rotten. The brothel owner cared. Alonso winced as the door flew open, banging loudly against the wall.

“How dare you burn my food, wench!” the man’s booming voice seemed to come from everywhere at once.

The girl screamed and begged, and Alonso turned, he couldn’t help it. Big blue eyes widened in shock as he watched the man grab the girls wrist, holding her hand in the fire until her skin began to crack and blister. She squealed in pain, begging for him to stop, apologising, struggling. The man held her there for what seemed like hours, although it was really less than a minute, before letting her go and storming out again. One of the other girls ran to her side, helping her up and taking her outside to put cold water on the burn.

Alonso’s eyes narrowed, tiny fists clenched tightly. His heart was racing, his chest felt tight. A voice came from the doorway, and it took him a second to recognise his own name.

“Alonso, boy, fetch the master’s drink,” the barman called.

An idea came to him, and Alonso followed outside, trying not to hear the poor girls sobs. He looked around, finally finding what he was looking for. There was a plant that grew outside, it had looked tasty enough, but Alonso had made that mistake once. It was poison, not deadly, but enough to put a child like him in bed for a week. He ripped off a few of the leaves, sneaking back into the kitchen and grinding them up, adding the sap to the pitcher of ale the master used before filling it. He took it out to the bar, and one of the others took it up to the master’s room.

Alonso went back to work, finishing washing the dishes and taking himself to bed afterwards. The master was absent the following day and the next few days were peaceful and pleasant. All seemed well until one night. He was shaken awake in the early hours of the morning, to find the old matron kneeling over his pile of rags.

“Come on, boy, wake up. Quickly now!”

“What’s going on?”

“Pack your things, boy. I saw what you did, but the master will find out when he recovers. I’ve been watching you, young one. If you come with me now, you can make something of yourself. If you don’t, he will put you out on the streets, if he doesn’t kill you first.”

Alonso shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

“You will. But you must leave with me now, boy.”

“Okay, Matron,” Alonso said, gathering the handful of possessions he had, a knitted blanket his mother had made, a book of children’s stories and a handful of coins he’d managed to save, delivering letters. Little did he know, this was only the beginning of a colourful career as a deadly assassin.

Alonso Cabiella’s history, by E stewart

Discussion

You don’t need to write it as prose like this, I just thought it would be fun to write it like that so you could see it. You should know these details. Even if you don’t explicitly mention them. Having a summary of important events of your characters past will help you keep them genuine and figure out how they would respond to the situations the plot is going to put them into.

The example above; is the story of how Alonso was recruited by the Assassin’s Guild is the example. In my world, the guild like to acquire them as children, should they show good potential. They go to a boarding school for education and training until adulthood. After that, they are apprenticed to experienced assassins to begin work. The old matron works as a contact for the guild, and she had already suspected Alonso fit the bill, the incident where he poisoned the brothel owner as revenge for the girl was what confirmed it. The quick thinking, resourcefulness and using his own knowledge and experiences to decide what to do.

Conclusion

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, and if there’s any particular examples of this that you really like. Look out for more on character development later this week. For more, subscribe below and follow me on my social media channels for more updates. For other posts covering characters take a look at these: here and here.

Punctuating and Formatting Dialogue

August 18, 2023 / / 0 Comments

How To Format Dialogue

You’ll remember that before we talked about breaking the rules of grammar within dialogue. That’s totally okay to do but when it comes to how we format and punctuate the dialogue itself within the text, there are important rules that must be followed. This is essential for making sure your dialogue is easy to read and follow. You don’t want your readers getting confused on who is saying what. So here’s the rules and tips for formatting and punctuating your dialogue.

Paragraphing

When writing dialogue, it is essential that the dialogue starts in a new paragraph. Even if it is just one or two words. After that, each new speaker gets a new paragraph. This applies whether you have two speakers or ten. So for a conversation between three characters, let’s call them Dave, Steve and Karen, you would format it like this.

Dave

Steve

Karen

Steve

Karen

Dave

This way it is clear that a different person is speaking for each line of dialogue. This also means you can reduce the use of dialogue tags a bit.

If a character is saying a lot at once, a longer monologue, you may choose to break it up into paragraphs. In this case, you should open each paragraph with quotation marks but only the end of the dialogue on the last paragraph should have closing quotation marks. This makes it clear that the preceding paragraphs are part of the same dialogue.

Quotation Marks

Direct dialogue must be enclosed in quotation marks. The general convention is to use double quotation marks – ” – these ones. Although in UK English it is also correct to use single quotation marks – ‘ – for direct dialogue. Either method is correct, but whichever one you use, make sure you’re consistent with it throughout the text.

For quotes within dialogue, these should be enclosed in quotation marks that are different from the ones you use for dialogue. So if your dialogue is contained within double quotation marks, you should use single quotation marks for quotes within dialogue, and vice versa.

“He literally said, ‘That’s not what’s going on.’ That’s what he said to me.”

or

‘He literally said, “That’s not what’s going on.” That’s what he said to me.’

Commas

When introducing dialogue, you should use a comma before the opening quotation marks. If you are ending the sentence containing the dialogue with a dialogue tag, the comma goes at the end of the dialogue before the closing quotation marks.

Steve said, “It wasn’t me.”

“It wasn’t me,” Steve said.

Remember that dialogue tags are part of the sentence. If the word after the closing quotation mark is not a proper noun, it does not need to be capitalised. Even if you end the dialogue with a question mark or exclamation mark. If you are not adding a dialogue tag at the end after the closing quotation mark, then the dialogue should end with a full stop (period) not a comma. Unless it is a question or requires an exclamation mark. You can see this in the above examples.

Interruptions and Trailing Off

During natural conversations, people will trail off or interrupt each other. That’s normal, especially during conversations that are emotionally charged. How can you show this in written dialogue, especially when you need a new line for a new person speaking? Two pieces of punctuation can help with this.

For interruptions, the best thing is a dash. Not just any dash, the em-dash. The em-dash is called this because it is the longest dash, the width of a capital M. They’re not easy to find on most keyboards, because they should be used sparingly.

They look like this: —

The keyboard shortcut is ctrl + alt + dash key. There may be different ones on different software programs.

“So, then I—“

“Hey! You better come quick!”

For trailing off, where the speaker stops speaking because they’ve realised something or lost their train of thought, you need the ellipsis. The infamous triple dots…

Depending on the style guide you use, there may or may not be spaces between the dots. The Chicago Manual of Style uses spaces between the dots . . .

Ellipses should be used only where necessary. It’s not uncommon for them to be overused. That gets tedious to read very quickly, and if they’re used too much, they lose their impact very quickly.

Conclusion

So that’s how to format and punctuate your dialogue. I hope you find it helpful. Go forth and write your dialogue effectively! Thank you for reading. Next week I’m going to start with some writing analysis posts, taking a look at some of the themes and subjects covered by pop-culture and examining how the writing explores these themes. Starting with one of my favourite TV shows of all time, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the spin-off, Angel. I’m also planning to challenge myself a bit with writing some short stories and flash fiction to get the creative juices going as I work on my novel.

If you want to be notified when the next post goes live, subscribe below. Follow me on my social media links for updates and behind the scenes ongoings. As always, I’m available for proofreading and editing work, so if you want to chat about working with me, get in touch here.

Essentials of Writing Dialogue

August 16, 2023 / / 0 Comments

When you’re writing fiction, dialogue is an essential part of it. It is also an area that a lot of writers will struggle with. Often the dialogue is written too correctly, or there’s just simply too much of it. Writers can be prone to excessive adjectives, trying to avoid using ‘said’ too much and overcompensating. Dialogue is a common place for punctuation mistakes as well. So, without further ado, here is the essentials of writing dialogue.

Breaking the rules of grammar

Obviously you want to show you know the rules of grammar. Mistakes make you look unprofessional. However, when it comes to writing dialogue, it’s okay to break the rules of grammar. In fact, I encourage it. Why? Because people don’t talk with perfect grammar. At least, most people don’t. People speak in sentence fragments, use contractions, use slang and may hesitate or repeat themselves. Take these two examples.

“Hey, what’s that?”

“I dunno. Found it over there.”

Versus

“Excuse me. What is that you have there?”

“I do not know. I found it over there.”

See the difference? Some people might speak very formally, but the second version sounds a lot less natural and most people aren’t going to speak like that. Someone who does speak with perfect grammar and formality, is usually someone who is highly educated, extremely arrogant or not used to talking to people. If in doubt, read or listen to it out loud, and if it doesn’t sound ‘normal’, it needs changing.

Dialogue Should Serve a Purpose

Is there such a thing as too much dialogue? Yes, absolutely. If there is nothing but dialogue, a lot of the story becomes lost. You need action, you need description and depending on the POV you need internal dialogue as well. Dialogue should have a purpose in the story, whether it is exposition, character or relationship development, plot development or showing emotions and reactions to what happens in the plotline.

A lot of editors will cut back dialogue if it does not serve a purpose to the story. Even if in the real world, you would have small talk and introductions and things, if it’s not helping move the story along, some of it probably isn’t necessary. Even if you’re writing a phone conversation, you can gloss over the “Hi, how are you, how are the kids,” kind of stuff if it’s not important. You can use indirect dialogue to summarise or even just leave it out and get to the point of the conversation. If there isn’t a point, then that dialogue is probably unnecessary and you could cover it by simply saying something like: X spent twenty minutes on the phone to their sister.

Indirect Dialogue

Nice segue into indirect dialogue and when it should be used. You want to avoid repetition. If a major event happened, then one of your characters is telling someone else about it, you don’t need to write out every word they say. Your reader will get bored reading a blow by blow account when they just read a blow by blow account.

Instead, summarise using indirect dialogue. “X explained what had just happened the night before.” Then, you can get into how the character receiving the explanation responds to the news instead, which will be more interesting. It also helps you avoid writing out excessive small talk.

Dialogue Tags

He said, she said, they said. A lot of writers feel they have to avoid using ‘said’ as much as possible. It comes from trying to sound original and trying to avoid repetition, but the problem is they then start digging deep into a thesaurus looking for alternatives.

This may not sound like a problem, but if the dialogue tags are extremely colourful and varied, it reduces the impact of the content of the dialogue. It distracts the reader from what’s actually being said. A lot of the time, what you can do is use ‘said’ and use description of body language and action to show people’s emotions, or even just the words the character uses. Having the odd interesting tag can put more emphasis on important pieces of dialogue and improve the impact.

Don’t forget that if there are only two people involved in the conversation, not every line of dialogue even needs a tag. As long as you remember to put each person’s lines in a new paragraph, after a couple of lines, you can drop the tags altogether, only adding them when needed to clarify who is speaking or for emphasis. For an example, here’s an excerpt from my current WIP novel demonstrating this.

Shaine nodded, shivering a bit. “It’s gotten quite cold in here,” she said.

“Mm. We can’t start a fire, the smoke could be suffocating in such a small space,” Alonso said.

“No, we can’t. Maybe… I can’t believe I’m saying this, but maybe we should put our bedrolls together. For warmth.”

“Oh? That would work,” Alonso said.

“To sleep.”

“Yes, I know what you meant, Shaine. I’ll be a perfect gentleman, I promise.”

Shaine smiled warmly. “I know. I trust you, Alonso. I’m so glad I’m not doing this alone,” she said.

1st draft Buried secrets excerpt – by emma stewart

Conclusion

So, that’s the essentials of writing dialogue. I hope you found it helpful. It was fun getting to share a little excerpt from my first draft as well. The further I get in writing it, the more excited I am to be able to share it with the world. I’ll leave things off here and on Friday we’ll pick it up again and talk about how to format and punctuate dialogue properly.

If you want to read more, there’s plenty of previous blog posts that you might find interesting. I’ve added a directory page to separate the posts by type and I will be reworking the categories and tags to make it easier to navigate and find what you’re interested in. Remember, you can find me on Facebook, Instagram and Tiktok as well. If you want to get updated every time a new post goes live, you can subscribe below. Until next time!

Seven Writing Myths Discussed

August 14, 2023 / / 0 Comments

There’s always someone telling you how you should write, that you must follow these steps and this routine to succeed as a writer. Then you find other people who tell you that these rules are utter nonsense. It can be difficult to know who to believe. As with any creative pursuit, writing has lots of myths and accepted truths that might not be quite so set in stone. So let’s discuss seven writing myths.

1. Write What You Know

This is a common one. The idea that you should only write about what you know about. The problem is, it’s difficult to interpret what this actually means. Most people assume it means you can only write about your own lived experience. So there is something to this, but at the same time, depending on your genre, writing only what you have experienced can limit you significantly.

A big part of writing, especially fiction, involves using imagination and creativity. If you want to write something that isn’t just an autobiography or a fictionalised version of your life, you need to think outside your own life experiences. You can use your own experiences and knowledge to embellish your writing and make it feel more real. But, if you want to include something you have no real world experience of, does this mean you can’t write about it?

Well, it depends. If you plan to include something you don’t know much about, the key to making it authentic is research. Learn all you can about the topic. Learn from people who have lived that experience. Be prepared to accept feedback and change things accordingly. For example, it can be difficult for someone who has never experienced depression, to write it authentically in a character. Not impossible, but you might find you have to really face up to your own misconceptions about what it’s like to experience depression. The same can apply to disabilities, gender identities, different sexual orientations and to race and ethnicity of real world people. Caution is advised, and thorough research will help you write this in a sensitive manner.

2. Reading Makes you a Better Writer

To a degree, this is true. If you’ve never been a big reader, writing can be difficult. Reading lets you explore new ideas and worlds, learning different styles and writing techniques and understanding the genres you’re interested in. However, writing is a skill and it can only be truly improved by practice.

Reading a lot won’t make you a better writer if you are not practicing the writing side of things. Analysis of what you read can help you identify techniques and skills that you can use as a writer, but you’ll only learn how to use them if you practice. Some people will say you should avoid reading too much, or you’ll end up copying other authors and stealing their style. This is also debatable. If you are writing for yourself, you will establish your own style, while perhaps taking influence from writers you like.

3. Write Every Day

A lot of writing advice is centered around this idea that you should write every single day no matter what. I disagree with this to some degree. I do believe having a good regular writing routine is a great idea, but like anything else, breaks are important. Just like going to the gym every single day and doing a full 2 hour workout is probably going to become counterproductive, writing is the same way. Forcing it too much will lead you to burn out.

It also depends on your life. A lot of writers, especially those just starting out, are probably doing it around a full time job, family life, studies or any other commitments. It makes much more sense to set aside time in your schedule you can dedicate to writing. If it’s one evening a week, great! If you can fit in an hour or two every day and that works for you, great! It needs to be sustainable

4. Writer’s Block

There’s a lot of opinions here. People will say ‘Writer’s block isn’t real, it’s just laziness’. Others will be keen to give you a list of different things you can do to overcome writer’s block. Basically it is a situation which many writers and creatives face, where they are struggling to produce any work. They can’t come up with ideas, you can’t write anything you’re happy with or you have no motivation.

It can be so difficult, when nothing seems to be working and you have no motivation or interest in your work. Personally, I do believe writer’s block is very real, I have experienced it myself. I find the key is figuring out why you’ve hit this stumbling block in your writing. Are you getting a bit burnt-out? Do you need to take a break? Are you just struggling to figure out what comes next?

Knowing what has caused it may help you find a way to overcome it. If you need a break, take a break. You could try looking at another project. Go and do something else and leave it for a few days. Maybe watch a new TV show or read a new book. You might just get an idea when you least expect it. If you are struggling with the next plot point, take some time to review what you’ve written so far. You don’t need to go ahead and do a full edit, but re-reading it might help you pick up on the plot threads again and figure out what you want to do next.

5. Your Idea Should Be Perfect Before You Start

To me, this is flat out wrong. If you wait until you have a perfect idea and a perfect plan, you’ll never get started. Perfection can come later, that’s what reviewing and editing is for. You have the idea, you’ve written a rough plan from the initial idea and after that, you should start writing. Things might change as you write, you might come up with new ideas and plot points as you go. That’s okay. This is why you write drafts and go back and edit later.

Very few pieces of media are published in their initial form. Movies and TV are edited extensively, a huge amount of footage filmed is removed. Music is the same, and writing is the same too. Some people advise against editing as you go, and recommend finishing the entire first draft before you go back and edit. Others prefer to edit a bit as they work. Either way, don’t be afraid to write everything that comes to mind.

6. You Must Write in a Certain Order

Some people will insist you should write your book from start to finish in that order. Even going so far as to insist you follow an established story structure format. Others will advocate for writing the ending first before filling in the rest. Is this really okay? I think it depends on you and how your brain works. As a rule, I tend to write from start to finish, but there have been times where I’ve had an idea for a specific scene that takes place later in the story than where I’m at.

I think if your inspiration is leading you to a later part of the book, it’s okay to write it and figure out exactly where it fits in later. My current WIP came about from an old writing experiment I did years ago where I basically tried to write a description of a journey. I read over it, and an idea came to me, and before I knew it, I had four chapters written. And it went from there.

7. Planning Stifles Creativity

The old ‘pantser’ vs ‘plotter’ debate. Pantsers are people who fly be the seat of their pants, i.e they get in their flow and write without having a plan in place. Plotters are the opposite, preferring to have an outline in place before they start writing. And plenty of writers fall somewhere in between. People who are pantsers will often claim that having a plan stifles their creativity and slows them down. Plotters will often argue that having a plan reduces the risk of writer’s block.

So who is right? Again, it depends. I do think it’s a good idea to have an idea of the overall plotline of your work before you start writing, at least having the ending in mind. You’re probably noticing a theme here, that these ‘rules’ are not as hard and fast as some people like to insist they are. There is something to most of them, but everyone works differently and I think these rules can be interpreted and applied to your work the way that works best for you. Or as they often say in Pirates of the Caribbean: “They’re more like guidelines, anyway.”

So that’s a view on some of these common writing myths. I’d love to hear any thoughts or experiences of what we’ve discussed today, so feel free to chat about it in the comments. For more, stay tuned. We’ll be staying in this vein for the rest of the week. I post every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe below to get an email whenever a new blog post is live.

For more on writing advice, I have other posts including cliches and editing as you go. For more on writer’s block, this blog post on Reedsy has a lot of good information.

« Older posts

© 2024 Emma Stewart Writes

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑

WordPress Cookie Plugin by Real Cookie Banner