by Ali | Mar 10, 2023 | Craft
What is a Scene? Understanding and Using the Basic Unit of Story Structure This post was first published in March 2016 and updated in March 2023. Scenes are the building blocks of your novel. When you plan (if you plan!), you’re thinking in scenes: individual little...
by Ali | Jun 13, 2022 | Craft
Why Repetition Can Be Powerful … and How to Get it Right This post was first published in June 2017 and updated in June 2022. Is it ever okay to repeat the same word or phrase in your writing? Absolutely! Unintentional repetition is something that authors are...
by Ali | Jan 31, 2022 | Craft
Getting Apostrophes Right: From the Easy to the Tricky Cases This post was first published in November 2016 and updated in January 2022. I think it’s a safe bet that you’ve come across the apostrophe before. (If not … there are two in the previous sentence.) But...
by Ali | Jan 17, 2022 | Craft
Split Narratives: Dividing Your Story Between Two or More Narrators This post was originally published in June 2015 and updated in January 2022. There are several perfectly good ways to structure a story in terms of viewpoint, but (probably) the more common ones are:...
by Ali | Jul 5, 2021 | Craft
What Are Dialogue Tags and Dialogue Beats? (And Why You Should Use “Said” Frequently) This post was originally published in April 2016 and updated in July 2021. Dialogue is vital to your story. It helps reveal and develop character – and it drives the plot...
![What Bad Writing Looks Like … and How to Fix It [With Detailed Examples]](https://www.aliventures.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/bad-writing-fix-it.png)
by Ali | Mar 29, 2021 | Craft
What Bad Writing Looks Like … and How to Fix It [With Detailed Examples] A lot of writers worry that they may not be good enough to be successful. The truth is that however “good” or “bad” your writing is, you can improve with practice and with careful...
