I wrote about my struggle with writer’s block on Romance Books ‘4’ Us blog.
https://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/2023/02/writers-block-by-janice-seagraves.html
Tag Archives: writer help
Passive Writing
Turning Passive Writing into Active Writing
By Janice Seagraves
Since I’ve been seeing a lot of passive writing in the critiques I’ve been doing here lately, I thought I’d do a vlog on passive writing.
What do I mean by passive writing?
Have you ever heard of show and don’t tell?
Passive example: Rose was mad.
What’s wrong with the above sentence? Not much really. It does what it’s supposed to do, it tells us Rose is mad. But it doesn’t show us that Rose is mad.
Active writing example: Rose slammed the door closed then stomped through the room. “That jerk!” Picking up a flower filled vase, she hurled it against the wall where it shatters.
Not a real great example but you get the idea. Notice I used the words: Stomped and Hurled. These are active verbs. I wanted to show action and anger even in my word choice.
Passive writing is that, passive. It doesn’t show the reader anything.
Have you noticed while watching a movie that when an actor portraying a character that is mad, he doesn’t just frown. He stomps, shouts and will nearly always breaks something. He’s showing us he’s angry. And in writing, we need to show it too.
Another example: Rose was sad and wanted to cry.
Again, there is nothing wrong with this sentence, but it’s still telling up and not showing us how the character Rose feels.
Active writing example: She closed the door and leaned on it. A tear worked its way past her control. She rubbed the wetness off her face with an impatient swipe of her fingers.
You can see here that I’m conveying the feeling of sadness without telling you she was sad.
Scene Structure: a vlog by Janice Seagraves
Scenes structure: A Goal, obstacle, and Change.
It can be read like this:
Goal—And
Obstacle—But
Change—Therefore
Or like this:
Your character wants to: And_______________, But_____________, Therefore_____________.
You can plot a scene this way or the overall arch of your story.
Something like: in Matrix Crystal Hunters.
And Maya’s GOAL is to find matrix crystals, so she and the rest of the crew can go home, BUT no one has mined the bigger crystals in a thousand years, THEREFORE she has to trust Vach a native of the planet to find them.
Vlog: The Black Moment
The Black Moment
by Janice Seagraves
The black moment is near the end of your story, right before the climax. It can also be the moment you’ve been foreshadowing during the entire story.
It’s the darkest part of your story, where everything looks the worst so you reader will keep turning pages just to find out if . . . your couple will get back together. The hero or heroine will survive the encounter with the bad guy. Or in the Movies: is Luke’s Father going back to the evil Empire’s side. The Mercenaries are going to kill Tree of Souls, and neither Jake nor the Na’vi can stop them.
Where it looks like all is lost.
So why do we write the black moments?
Because it make for a more compelling read and it makes the climax even more interesting, because that’s when you hero or heroine saves the day.
In my book Windswept Shores, my black moment involves pirates. Not the sexy pirates of the Caribbean, but modern day, nasty, thieving pirates of the Bahamas.
Excerpt, Windswept Shores:
Closer to camp, she heard voices. Oh, the self-styled-natives must be visiting again. Megan looked forward to their infrequent visits, and her Spanish was improving with use. They had also taken a second letter to her sons, if it ever made its way to the states, anyway. Maybe I can talk them into selling me some fuel?
With a lighter heart, she walked out of the bush, only to see suitcases and clothes flying out of her tent. Her wicker door had been cut off and tossed to the side. The deflated raft lay near it.
“Hey, what are you doing? Stop that.”
A dark head popped out of her tent. “Bueno dias, senorita,” he said with a gap-toothed leer, making Megan self-conscious in the bikini and sarong she wore.
A thump from the boat made her glance from the ugly man to the Dinki-Di. Someone was digging through the built-in tool box and setting things to the side. “Get out of the boat. It doesn’t belong to you.”
“Who might you be, little lady?” asked a man with dirty blond hair and a slight southern accent. He seemed to be supervising the men. He sucked on a cigar, blowing out a cloud of vile-smelling smoke.
“None of your business, that’s who. Tell your men to get out of my stuff,” she snapped. “You’re trespassing.”
“Trespassing is a matter of opinion, especially since your boat’s a derelict. We claim salvage rights.”
“The Dinki-Di is my home. It’s not a derelict.”
The man from the tent snatched her basket and stepped over to the blond man, stuffing fruit into his mouth. Juice dripped down his chin.
Startled by his hyena laugh, she took a step back. “Jerk. You guys are no better than thieves, you’re pirates.”
The blond tossed his cigar, took out a fruit, and shined it on his shirt before he bit into it. “Pirate is such an out of date word. I prefer the term entrepreneur, and these men are my employees.” He frowned at the plundered plum. “Ugh, it’s overripe.”
“Madre de Dios,” exclaimed the one in the boat, standing up as he dropped one of Seth’s huge sandals.
“Who else is here with you?” demanded the blond man, pitching his fruit to the side and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
Megan glanced around at the strangers’ hard expressions. All at once, she realized what they saw; a short, unarmed, scantily clad female all alone on a deserted island. They even took my basket away. I could have thrown my produce at them and ran. God, there are no police! No people. Just us. They can do whatever they want, and who would stop them? Feeling like she had just swallowed a lump of ice, Megan took a deep breath and yelled, “Seth, help. I need you.”
That’s all I have for now. Before I go can you please like and subscribe. Thank you for watching.
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Trade paperback: https://www.createspace.com/4084680
Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AS9NDNO
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/446101
Janice Seagraves’s website: http://janiceseagraves.org/
Writer’s Tip #1
Mini Lesson: Up
Mini Lesson: Up
By Janice Seagraves
Up like the word down is a direction, but do we really need it in our writing?
Let’s take a closer look:
Example: She stood up.
Do we really need up in this sentence? No, not really. If she stood, then up is a given.
Correct: She stood.
Example: Grandma told Brian to put up his toys. He placed his toy cars on top of the TV, which made grandma angry.
You can see here Brian got confused by what Grandma wanted when she told him “to put up his toys.” Most readers would probably understand what Grandma meant, but to avoid confusion another word choice might work better.
Correct: Grandma told Brian to put away his toys. He placed them in his toy chest.
Example: The cat climbed up the tree.
We can assume that if the cat was climbing, it would climb up, unless you indicate the direction.
Correct: The cat climbed the tree.
Example: She looked up at the tall man.
If the man is tall then we can assume that she was looking up at him, unless of course if she’s taller than the man.
Correct: She looked at the tall man.
Janice Seagraves, Author 