Site icon Meredith Rankin

Writing Tips from my April 2019 reviews #writingtips

Bonus Tips for Writers from this month’s reviewed books.

I used to include these bonus tips at the end of each review, but I noticed that it often made my reviews quite long. Instead, I’ll share the writer tips from my new reviews every other Wednesday. If these are at all helpful for you, please share with your other writer friends!

Settings

from The Leaden Heart, by Chris Nickson:

1. Use more than one physical sense to create your setting. The fewer words, the better.

When Harper and Ash visit the mortuary of the hospital, Nickson writes,

They both knew the place too well, footsteps echoing off the walls as they walked, the grim, harsh stink of carbolic catching at the back of their throats” (chapter 18).

Notice how Nickson evokes the sense of smell (“grim, harsh stink”), taste (“back of their throats”), and sound (“footsteps echoing off the walls”). I don’t need much more than this to feel like I’m in that hospital, dogging their footsteps, tagging along on their reluctant errand to the morgue and bracing myself for the horror of a dead body. That entire sentence is 28 words long. No need to go off on a multi-paragraph description cataloging every smell, taste, feeling, etc. This is a particular weakness of mine, so I’m preaching to myself!

from Lives Laid Away by Stephen Mack Jones:

2. Make the setting work for your story

In Lives Laid Away, Detroit is almost a character itself. Mexicantown is populated by immigrants (some legal, some not). Even the legal ones fear ICE, as officers demand identification or harass Snow’s neighbors. (One is a natural-born citizen!)

from The Kill List by Frederick Forsythe:

1. Use the delivery of facts to convey other story-information.

Frederick Forsythe does this when the Tracker talks to a cyberace–not the teenager–about the Preacher’s website.

“He transmits on a website called Hejira. That was the flight of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina.” The Tracker kept a straight face. He did not need explanations about Islam. (The Kill List, pg. 41)

While there’s nothing terribly special about the information itself, I found Forsythe’s technique interesting. Think about all that he’s combining in a few meager sentences:

Why doesn’t the Tracker need the explanations? Because he’s studied and researched it himself even before the Preacher’s appearance. (We’ve previously been shown his empathy and interest in Arab culture.) So there’s more characterization of the Tracker, a bit of background info on Islam, and a fact about the Preacher’s cyberspace “home” –all in three sentences. Not bad. Wish I could manage that!

from The Fourth Courier by Timothy Jay Smith:

2.  Use contrast to create setting, atmosphere, and tension.

Smith uses contrasts, particularly in descriptions, to create atmosphere. It helps create a vivid setting, but it also increases the tension. For example, Kulski tells Jay that his family had waited 7 years for their two room home, and he and his wife had to sneak off to be romantic together because they lived with two small kids and her parents in this place. (Talk about awkward!) Then he points out Director Husarska’s much nicer apartment. Those in the Communist Party lived here, he tells Jay.

There are plenty of other examples, but that was one that stood out to me, as it deftly shows both historical and current setting, and reveals a divide between Husarska and Kulski, one that holds the potential for conflict.


Plot

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