The Motivational Editor

Helping Writers Go from Unpublished to Published

Writing Skills

5 Tips to Add Other Cultures to Your Story Without Leaving the Country

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Author L.A. Darroch

Today’s guest post is by author L.A. Darroch, a Christian author with a heart for writing about the persecuted church and other stories that touch the hearts of readers for God’s glory. She seeks to use her writing to encourage readers to “Speak Life.” She credits her late father with introducing her to a passion for reading. Darroch lives in Winnipeg, Canada, and is owned by a very smart cat named Bathsheba.

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How to Handle Footnotes and Endnotes

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Chicago Manual of Style formatting footnotes and endnotes

Footnotes and endnotes tend to be cumbersome for most writers. Most certainly, I keep my Chicago Manual of Style handy when I’m editing notes.

To avoid the weightiness of correct formatting, I like to cite my sources within the body of my text when I can. But I realize there is a time for notes.

Why Do I Need Footnotes or Endnotes?

The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition, says this: “Ethics, copyright laws, and courtesy to readers require authors to identify the sources of direct quotations or paraphrases and of any facts or opinions not generally known or easily checked.”

In other words, giving credit where credit is due. Using someone else’s words or ideas and claiming them as your own is called plagiarism—serious business that could land you in jail.

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Sentence Structure and How It Impacts Your Reader

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Sentence structure is a riveting subject, don’t you think so?

Okay, maybe not. Me either.

Let me ask you this instead: When you’re engrossed in a book, do you notice sentence structure? If you’re like me, you don’t notice it at all unless…it becomes monotonous.

Last month, I looked at pacing. In that post, I talked about how sentence length affects your story’s pacing. This month, I’ll examine actual sentence structure. No, this isn’t going to be a grammar lesson. Yes, I realize this may be boring, but it’s important. I’ll do my best to interject some humor.

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Pacing — What It Is and How to Manage It

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runners, pacing your story

“Pace yourself.”

In my running days in the Marine Corps, I heard this imperative regularly. Perhaps you’ve heard it too. It means managing how quickly or slowly you run your distance. If you plan to run a mile, you don’t run the whole distance at a sprint like you would the 100-yard dash.

You can apply this same principle in establishing the pacing of your story and each scene. Not every scene is a dash; not every scene is a slow walk. Over the full length of the story, the pace will vary. But your story must have a continuous forward progression.

“Nearly all narratives…require forward motion and change over time, whether that change occurs in the narrator/characters or in the reader’s perception of the narrator or characters.” ~ Laurie Alberts, Showing & Telling

We want to know the story is moving forward to an end result.

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Doing Research for Your Book

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Doing research for your book

Doing research for your book isn’t restricted to those who write nonfiction. It’s just as essential for fiction, even more so if you are writing historical fiction or have set the story in a region of the world you are unfamiliar with.

Later this month, I’ll be making a trek to Montana for just this purpose. I need to get more familiar with Montana because that is the setting for my Her Inheritance series. When I started book one, I visited the Montana tourist bureau online and requested items they offered for free. I got more than I expected, and it included a detailed map of Montana that I have referenced many times as I’ve been writing.

So this prompts the question, How do you do book research?

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Quoting the Bible – Doing It Correctly

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Quoting the Bible is a frequent occurrence for Christian writers. But do you know your limits on what you can quote, understand how to format your verse(s), and the know the copyright credit you must give?

As I edit writers’ manuscripts, I find errors in all these areas, so let’s dive in and look at each one.

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Has Your Story Time Line Jumped the Tracks?

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Train engine has crashed through a building. Keeping your time line on the tracks.

Updated July 5, 2021

Have you ever been reading a story and suddenly found yourself saying, “Wait a minute, in that last chapter spring was just beginning and now suddenly it’s wintertime?”

I know I have. And it’s like a train crashing through the middle of the story.

Sometimes it’s not that stark, but I notice when things are out of sync even by mere hours. Yes, that can be drawback in my pleasure reading, but in editing, this ability to track the story’s time line is an asset.

Not all stories are this linear, but most are. And whether you are aware of it, you track the story time line as you read. Even movies give us clues as to the passing of time—usually through a night scene that transitions to a day time scene.

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Creating a Series Bible for Your Fiction Series

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Author RJ Thesman

Today’s post is by RJ Thesman. Thesman is the author of 18 books (so far) and 800+ articles and stories. She is a certified life coach with a focus on writing, an editor, and a workshop presenter. Currently, she is finishing another novel, pulling weeds in the garden, and petting the cat during breaks. Connect with RJ on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube, then subscribe to her channel Coaching for Writers.

Creating a Series Bible

When I first met my fictional protagonist Reverend G, I was certain I would never forget her. Yet as her story evolved into a series, I needed a tool to keep the details credible.

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