Today I’m going to vent about a writing pet peeve I have. It’s when writers try to do more than one thing simultaneously in your writing.

Now, by this I don’t mean trying to infuse sensory details while evoking emotional responses. That’s part of good writing. What I’m talking about is having someone walk down the steps as they’re running their fingers through their hair,
or talking to their sister while they’re looking at the man across the room.
Those two words, as and while, have become words that immediately jump off the page for me when I’m editing projects for clients. They tend to point to someone trying to either tell me what is going on or someone trying to do too many things at one time.
Remember, in writing we can only see one thing at a time. That means that you have to describe one action, the implications and then move on to the next action. By trying to tell me two things are happening simultaneously you’re going to pull me out of story world. Things are going to jump out of order and it’s going to distract me as a reader.
So make sure as you’re going through your writing and your personal revisions that you look out for the words as and while. Whenever you see those make sure that you’re not trying to describe two physical actions happening simultaneously.
Instead go in and change up those words and infuse more detail. Take your reader deeper down into your character.

Don’t miss a single posting! Subscribe here to receive these postings by e-mail. Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at writingcareercoach.com.

In my previous blog I suggested looking for work in other venues. Today I want to show how this will help you with your book or novel writing.

1. You learn to write by writing. While there is a difference between a term paper and a romance novel writing is still writing. You learn to express yourself better as you write, no matter what the writing is for.
2. You learn about people. Interacting with people is a great way to deepen character development. In novels our characters will not always react in a way that seems logical to us. We need to learn how others react to certain situations so we can integrate that in our writing.
3. You make connections with other people who could be future readers. Becoming visible in your community helps increase your platform and will lead to more sales.

While these are just a few ways you can benefit from writing for other venues, they are important. Why don’t you take a few minutes to think of how writing for others will help you build and develop your writing career and share your thoughts in the comments.

Don’t miss a single posting! Subscribe here to receive these postings by e-mail. Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at writingcareercoach.com.

“That will end up in a book.”
 
If you spend any time around a writer you will hear that phrase. That is because so much of our writing is drawn from our personal experiences in one way or another. While most of my stories are not autobiographical [I don't stalk women based on a misinterpreted scripture, nor am I a college student in a small town trying to solve a murder], I have to admit that things that I experience do find their way in to my writing in one way or another.
 
Maybe it is the way I personally reacted to a breakup or disappointment. It could be that one of my characters is afraid of the same thing I am. These are all obvious and easy to do.
 
Have you ever considered bringing the dual nature of your personality in to your writing?
 
I am really a dichotomy. On the one hand, I am a successful speaker who really enjoys speaking to large groups. On the other hand, I am a total nerd who gets excited at the idea of doing research and looked forward to every term paper in college. My idea of a dream job would be sitting in a room full of ideas, articles, news reels, historical data, etc. and making sense of it all. Pecking away at a keyboard and discussing the implications with a coworker of similar temperment. Trying to find a pattern and constructing possible scenarios from it.
 
How do you reconcile the two? One is extremely extroverted, the other introverted. One thrives on feedback and the energy of a crowd, the other the quiet solitude of one’s own thoughts.
 
I guess you become a writer. That’s what I did.
 
Think about the contradictory things in you. Then take time to discover and deepen the contradictory nature of your main characters [including your villain]. Doing that will deepen your writing and create a more relatable story.

Learn how to get readers to pick you and your story by following these links:

Getting readers to pick you

How readers decide what to read

Presenting yourself well

Getting noticed by readers

Going on the hunt

Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at http://www.writingcareercoach.com/
Tiffany is a speaker and teacher. Find out about available topics for your group’s next event.
Tiffany is a National Examiner. Read her articles here.
Learn more about Tiffany’s Marketing techniques on her main blog.
Common-sense money management is free at The Balanced Life website.
Read Tiffany’s award winning manuscript “A Face in the Shadow” on her fiction blog.
She writes a blog for the Christian writer Tuesdays at Writer’s Rest.

When we are developing our characters for our stories we spend a great deal of time creating believable people. We want them to be flawed, but likable. This even goes for the bad guy sometimes. Some of the creepiest bad guys are those that we want to win anyway. My favorite example is Phantom in Phantom of the Opera. You know what he did is wrong but your heart breaks just the same at the end of the story.

I think one thing we as authors and business owners must also do is be human. There is a delicate balance between being human and committing a TMI-faux pas [TMI=Too much information]. The rise in popularity of reality shows, blogs and social networking, I believe, is the desire to pull people from their pedestals and “see behind the curtain” as it were.

How much humanity are you allowing your readers or your target market to see. Don’t show so much that you undermine confidence in your professionalism, but you don’t want to be aloof either. It is about striking a balance.

I’d like to share with you a blog interview I did with Nora St. Laurent. Here is the link. I was discussing a bit about Writing Career Coach but I also talked a bit about our family’s financial struggles in the wake of my husband’s cancer diagnosis 2 1/2 years ago. From that was birthed my other website “The Balanced Life“.

As professionals who move in to the spotlight upon publication it is important to maintain our privacy while at the same time being human to the people who invest in us. Consider how you, and your characters, can become more human to your target readership. And please go check out the blog. It is a lot of fun. You’ll find out about the Green Dress, Worm Farms [huh], and how we turned little Debbie snack cakes in to a chicken farm.

It’s your opportunity to look behind the curtain of my life for a moment and see my driving motivation as a Coach.

Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at www.WritingCareerCoach.com
Learn more about Tiffany’s Marketing techniques on her main blog.
Common-sense money management is free at The Balanced Life website.
Read Tiffany’s award winning manuscript “A Face in the Shadow” on her fiction blog.
She writes a blog for the Christian writer Tuesdays at Writer’s Rest.