How to Achieve Your Best Work
Presented by Louise Bergmann DuMont At the NJCWG Meeting – 2/14/05
1. First and Fired-up – Your first words need to create the maximum impact. Jump into the action and leave the explanation for later. Start where the story is most interesting.
2. Powerful Authors Write Powerful Prose – Leave the passive voice to the timid (and the unpublished) authors. Use direct speech. Write in active voice.
3. Write Regularly – If you want to be a published author, you must practice your craft. Don’t think about writing. Don’t dream about writing. WRITE.
4. Scary Stuff – Figure out what stops you from writing and remove those obstacles. No worthy goal is without a challenge.
5. Know the Rules of Writing – Grammar and spelling are not optional skills You don’t have permission to break the rules until you use them effectively.
6. Long Range Plan – Accept the fact that no matter what your degree, no matter how much you want to be a writer, you must learn the game before the pros will let you play.
7. Industry Standards – Writing is the easy part, understanding the industry that will allow you publish your writing is a whole other matter. To play this game you need to know the rules, gather your gear, use your writing tools effectively, and practice, practice, practice. Only then will big boys let you play.
8. Visual Sells – SHOW, don’t TELL your story. We live in a movie hungry society. Your writing needs to reel itself out; one frame at a time, image after image.
9. Conflict Makes the Story ‘Pop’ – Everything is built on conflict. Life is a study in conflict. Your manuscript may involve internal conflict or the conflict may be produced externally – but there should always be conflict.
10. Tags – use the invisible tag “said” whenever possible.
11. Mix It Up – Use both narrative and dialog as is appropriate.
12. Narrative – Strong nouns and active verbs are the key to good narrative.
13. Dialog – Listen to people talk and write real conversation. Condense the dialog where necessary but make sure it flows naturally. Read it out loud to see if you stumble over words or phrases.
14. The Rule of Three – The triangle provides the simplest and one of the strongest structures in nature, and in writing
15. Outline – always, Always, ALWAYS outline before you start writing. Your outline can be as simple as three sentences that produce the opening, the body and the closing – but you must have some knowledge of the structure of your piece before you begin writing. Once you know where you are going, you have a better chance of achieving your goal. The five minutes you take to sort out your story will save you an hour’s worth of rewrites.
16. Ebb and Flow – Stories and articles must rise and fall like the tide. Start with the hook, back-up with some explanation, build toward a climax, let the pace fall back slightly, and then place another hook to get the reader to turn the page or continue to the next chapter.
17. Everything must have a purpose – Don’t throw a clue into a mystery if you aren’t going to have the detective follow up on it. Don’t add characters that are not important. Don’t allow the plot to take rabbit trails that lead nowhere. If it has no purpose – toss it.
18. Don’t feed the reader – Forced dialog that is used simply to convey information, is bad writing.
19. POV (Point of View) – pick your point of view before you start writing. Stick with it throughout the piece. Head popping (moving from one POV to another) gives the reader a headache.
20. Reality Isn’t Just for TV – Make sure your characters ring true. Would your heroine REALLY do or say what you’ve asked her to?
21. Negatives – Don’t overuse negative statements or words.
22. Questions – When you ask a question; be sure to answer it. Rhetorical questions only work on occasion. Use questions sparingly.
23. Antagonist / Protagonist – No one is all good or all bad. To create believable characters, allow your protagonist some bad habits and give your antagonist some redeeming qualities.
24. Know Your Character / Your Setting / Your Story – Don’t try to write a story about things you don’t know (unless you are willing to do a LOT of research). It will only make you look foolish. Stick with what you know until you get a better handle on what you don’t know.
25. Avoid Commentary – Give your reader credit for being an intelligent human being. Avoid explaining everything and telling the reader what they should think, feel, do and believe. Lay out a good story and allow your reader to draw their own conclusions.
26. Entertain – Even individuals who read nonfiction want to be entertained to some extent. You can make your nonfiction interesting by quoting authorities and using descriptive narrative.
27. Repetition – Do not repeat the same word (or similar sounding words) in connecting sentences and be sure to vary the length of your sentences. Use ‘he’, ‘the boy’ and ‘Charlie' instead of constantly referring to your character by name. Buy a thesaurus and expand your vocabulary. Use language exercises to teach yourself how to say the same thing in a dozen different ways.
28. Audience – Know your audience. It is always about the reader.
29. Facts Factor – When you can’t offer facts or answers – offer hope. Never simply ask questions or contemplate problems. Never offer a list of facts. The author must offer something to the reader that they can’t get on their own.
30. First and the Last – Never believe that your first draft is your last.
31. Critics vs Critiques – There is a difference between a critic and a critique. A good critique will encourage you and make your writing better. A critic will simply tell you that you are no good, and leave you without hope. Accept what critiques say, do not accept the critics.
32. Rejection’s Lessons – Learn from rejection. Reread the guidelines. Did you follow them to the letter? Were you pitching to the right audience? Was your piece tight? Was it carefully edited? If so, remember that a “rejection” may only mean, “not now.”
