Live Write Thrive | Insights, inspiration, and practical advice for writers

3 Ways to Make Your Novel’s First Page Cinematic

September 20, 2021 in Novel Structure, Shoot Your Novel with 0 Comments

Today’s post is a reprint from some years back—important technique for anyone writing fiction!

Readers will often stop reading before they finish the first page of your story. While this has always been true, in this fast-paced age that foments impatience, it’s even more true.

If a writer doesn’t deliver what a reader hopes for on that first page, it’s going to be tough to convince the reader to stick around for the whole chapter—let alone the whole book.

There are lots of things needed on a first page of a novel or short story. And while it’s not a hard-and-fast rule that all these elements have to show up on page 1, the more elements a writer includes, the better.

This, of course, is going to vary a lot. And if a writer is starting with a prologue or some scene that doesn’t introduce the protagonist, that makes a difference as well. But the overall objective, regardless of opening scene, isn’t going to change. And that is to engage the reader. Continue Reading…

6 Tips to Make Your Scenes Visually Dynamic

September 13, 2021 in Novel Structure, Shoot Your Novel with 2 Comments

Today’s post is a reprint from 2016.

Many of us were raised watching thousands of movies and television shows. The style, technique, and methods used in film and TV are so familiar to us, we process them comfortably. To some degree, we now expect these elements to appear in the novels we read—if not consciously, then subconsciously.

We know what makes a riveting scene in a movie, and what makes a boring one—at least viscerally. And though our tastes differ, certainly, for the most part we agree when a scene “works” or doesn’t. It either accomplishes what the writer or director has set out to do, or it flops.

As writers, we can learn from this visual storytelling; what makes a great movie can also strengthen a novel or short story. Much of the technique filmmakers use can be adapted to fiction writing. Continue Reading…

6 Factors to Becoming Super Productive

September 6, 2021 in Writing for Life with 1 Comment

If you’re like so many people these days, you’re fatigued and often unmotivated. Covid has wreaked damage not only to the world at large but to every person’s psyche. Our nerves are shot. We are all suffering from post-traumatic stress in one form or another (or we are in present stress).

I don’t have to continue with the long list of stressors running rampant in our lives.

Still … we want to be productive. And even if productivity means just getting through your to-do list each day, that matters.

Writers need to be productive to get any writing done. And we don’t want to just write; we want our writing to be excellent, maybe even significant.

So, in this world that drains more than fills, what can writers do to increase productivity in a practical way?

I propose six factors that can influence our productivity, and these have to do with ensuring we function at our peak performance level. And, overall, these will result in better health and feeling better about ourselves overall. Continue Reading…