{"id":10552,"date":"2023-08-10T08:01:39","date_gmt":"2023-08-10T12:01:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=10552"},"modified":"2023-08-10T08:01:39","modified_gmt":"2023-08-10T12:01:39","slug":"writing-tips-38-ways-to-improve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=10552","title":{"rendered":"Writing Tips: 38 Ways to Improve"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Click-bait headlines like \u201cThe Six Grammar Mistakes Almost Everyone Makes\u201d or \u201cTen Rules for Writing Mysteries\u201d lure me in every time, so I shouldn\u2019t have been surprised when a savvy friend forwarded me a blurb for The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes<\/a><\/em> by Jack Bickham. It was originally published in 1992 and reprinted in 1997. Anyone familiar with this book or him?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amazon lets me take a look at the table of contents, and it\u2019s charmingly aggressive: Chapter 10, \u201cDon\u2019t Have Things Happen for No Reason,\u201d (so unlike real life, then); Chapter 16, \u201cDon\u2019t Let (Characters) Be Windbags,\u201d (no BOGSAT* here); Chapter 28, \u201cDon\u2019t Worry What Mother Will Think\u201d!; and, something every writer needs, Chapter 37, \u201cDon\u2019t Give Up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have a shelf full of writing-advice books and some are really excellent. And some are more excellent at some times than others. A lot of this advice kind of passes over my head, but when I\u2019m faced with a particular story problem, even one I can\u2019t quite define, the same advice I\u2019ve read many times before finally hits the bulls-eye. A book organized like Bickham\u2019s would at least help me focus on what I think is the problem, though I may be wrong!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While a lot of story constraints and possibilities have changed since 1997\u2014social media, cell phone ubiquity, as examples\u2014the fundamentals of character development, plot clarity, and scene construction stay pretty much the same, unless you\u2019re writing experimental fiction (which I find generally unreadable).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bickham, who wrote and published more than 90 novels in various genres\u2014crime, espionage, westerns\u2014and under various names, died in 1997. He\u2019s was a University of Oklahoma professor and was awarded the university\u2019s highest honor for teaching excellence. I think that comes through in the down-to-earth approach he takes in this book. If you find you like The 38<\/em>, he\u2019s written five other books on such craft specifics as scene and structure, short stories, and the like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you know this book, tell us whether you found it useful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*BOGSAT: Bunch Of Guys Sitting Around Talking<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Image by Markus Winkler for Pixabay.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click-bait headlines like \u201cThe Six Grammar Mistakes Almost Everyone Makes\u201d or \u201cTen Rules for Writing Mysteries\u201d lure me in every time, so I shouldn\u2019t have been surprised when a savvy friend forwarded me a blurb for The 38 Most Common … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"A lively-sounding writing advice book with a down-to-earth approach. Any fans out there?","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[40,174,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-first-draft-blog","category-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2Kc","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10552"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10554,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10552\/revisions\/10554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}