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Q. After reading the chapter on proportion, I’m wondering about transitions between scenes. In my own writing, I see that I might include too much irrelevant information—like my character wakes up, brushes her teeth, stops at the coffee shop on the way to work, etc. and all of this is described. Some early critiques in my writer’s group have told
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Q. I have a question about dialogue as it pertains to characters in historical fiction. Writing Elizabethan-era characters as speaking in outright Shakespearean dialogue would obviously not be a good idea, but it would seem that using contractions or modern turns of phrase would destroy the authenticity. What are your thoughts and techniques on finding a happy medium to make
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Q. After a second reading of my novel, I’m afraid that I use a lot of clichés. I’ve removed all the obvious ones, like there was a “cut to the chase” and another “hitting rock bottom”, but I can just feel there are more lurking. The problem is, how do I identify what is considered a cliché versus what is just a normal
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Q. Okay, so as verbs for speech go, how do you feel about verbs like asked, inquired, or questioned, especially in cases where you might already have a bunch of saids on a page and be tempted to choose an alternative for variety’s sake? On one hand it seems to make sense, but on another it seems dumb to use
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Q. I’ve just finished rereading the point of view chapter and I notice there you make an interesting point about “authorial transparency” in defense of a position (that I happen to very much agree with) that omniscient narration is seldom the best choice for a contemporary fiction. This got me thinking about your book as a whole and how
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