Midnight’s Reckoning is done and is with the editor. I’m in the middle of writing Aiden Kane’s story for the Second Chances Series. My husband helped me thresh out the background of my female main character then I realised how varied the advice on writing has been.
As much as possible, I try not to use adverbs or adjectives. I show more than tell, though this can be difficult too. As it so happens, I was going through my creative writing notes when I saw this wheel.
It is so easy to use these words as part of dialogue tags. But what does it mean to despair? How does that look? How about anxious? How does that look? Feel?
One of the responsibilities of a writer is to make the reader feel that they are inside the story that they completely forget about the tags so they can see and feel everything the character is going through. The way to do that is to describe…to show than leaving it to a word to encapsulate what a character is going through. Not that a little bit of telling is bad, but that’s for another time.
Ironic, isn’t it that these words are no longer enough when this was how some stories were written in the past. At least some of those I’ve read.
I’m not saying that all writers completely depend on this wheel. I’m speaking from my own experience. The Writer’s Wheel is a guide when you need another word for ‘happy’. Just not an end all or be all of writing.
I gotta get back to Aiden and Raine before my mojo goes on a retreat.
Isobelle Cate 