Wednesday Writing Tip

Top Five Ways Writers Bore Readers (continued)

Okay, here are the last two ways.

#2. Lack of Literary Devices

There are a lot of people who fail to use any literary devices in their story. Yeah, we know that you don't plan on your book becoming the next great American Novel, (at least I hope so!) but you could still use some of those authors' tricks. Books without any literary devices make for okay reading, but for it really to shine add at least some of these into your stories:

Irony
Foreshadowing
Subplots
Flashbacks
Onomatopoeia
Allegory

#1 Failure to Spotlight the Main Character

I'm not sure if this qualifies as the top way, but it's what I've finally come to. This story is about your main character, the one person (or horse) that you poured all this work into. You can have secondary characters; pretty much all of my books require secondary characters because all horses have riders and other horse friends, but you don't want to focus on their stories.
     Sometimes I will find my book gravitating towards secondary character's lives and such. If I find that happening I quickly try to set it straight, or rearrange it as a subplot. Faith's family problems in the book Appaloosy is an example of a subplot.
     I've read stories that people have written where they tell the story of ten different people! That's great if you purposely want it that way, but if you want your novel to be great, readable, and not boring, then follow the story of your main character.

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     Okay now that I've gotten more followers too I've been asked the question, "What is the book Appaloosy about?" And it's not just local people reading this blog anymore. So, tomorrow I plan on putting up a Synopsis and maybe a Book Excerpt and/or the beginning of the book.



So Don't Miss It!!      

♥Mattie