Welcome to A Novel Approach. If this is your first issue, I encourage you to check out my back issues for more tips on how to write a novel. It's my fondest hope that I can help other writers do the best they can do.

If you have any specific aspects about novel writing you'd like me to address in future issues, please feel free to contact me and let me know what those are. Thank you for your interest, and here's to better writing!

Creative Writing Techniques For Scintillating Fiction

If your novel doesn't enthrall your readers, perhaps these creative writing techniques - ones I've tried myself with success - will help you make your fiction hit home harder.

From Flat to Three Dimensional

I looked up writing techniques on Wikipedia, just to see what was there. Many of the techniques I saw don't lend themselves to fiction.

Others do, quite well.

For instance, you can use something called captured moments to help give your fiction more depth. With this method, you take vignettes from life and describe them as vividly as possible.

I always recommend trying to evoke all five senses when you do an exercise like this. Or as many as you possibly can.

For example: Fifty candles lit the entire room up, even though the cake was the only thing lit. The heat of them warmed my flushed face. I could smell the hot wax mingling with the chocolate frosting. Enough so my mouth began to water in anticipation of the first bite melting within it.

Voices died back as someone hummed an opening note for "Happy Birthday", then they rattled my eardrums with the worst rendition I'd ever heard. I shivered as a cold draft slid down my neck. Could I really be fifty? I felt like I was still twenty-five.

Now don't go dropping this kind of description into every paragraph of your novel verbatim. If you do, you'll be committing a mortal novelist sin: description overload.

Instead, take this delightful piece of description you've written and use just a little like it here and there to make your prose lively. Or spread the phrases out over a page or so. And don't feel you have to try to use all five senses on every page. I tried that once and the result was... well ridiculous.

Remember, it's always a balance.

Really Getting Into It

When I was younger - and living alone - I tended to talk out and even act out many of the scenes from my books. At least if it was practical to do so.

This writing technique can help you get into your fiction much more deeply.

Become the fair maiden in distress (I know, that's a cliche). Stand in the tower staring mournfully down, straining to see your prince coming to rescue you.

Better yet, be the hero in distress and wait for your fair maiden to come rescue you. After all, it's the twenty-first century.

Try it. It really does help to get into the heads of your characters. Even your bad guys. Your novel will only improve if you do.

Experience as a Teacher

One of my favorite writing techniques is to try doing what my characters do. This is a great technique, as long as your characters' actions aren't dangerous or illegal. In that case, go back to the imagining what it's like from the previous section and use that.

Walk in the rain (or hail) on a blustery day, so you know how your hero feels when he has to slog ten miles through a rainstorm in the autumn.

A couple summers ago, my daughter and I went for a walk in the mountains of Colorado. (She's a writer, too.) It was sunny when we left, though there were clouds south of us.

No big deal, I thought. Most of the storms come in from the west.

Turns out this one was coming from the south. Before we could get back to my mom's house, the curtain of rain bore down on us. And not just rain, but small hail.

Talk about getting experience! Mountain rainstorms are COLD! And we got drenched.

My daughter chattered all the way back about how great the experience was for her writing. I shivered and laughed and said it had been a long time since I'd walked in Colorado rain, so it was a nice refresher for me, too.

In a similar vein, I read of an author who kept trying to write a story about a kidnapping. But it kept coming out flat. Until he had his wife recreate the circumstances on him. Then his prose raced from his fingertips in scintillating detail.

So, as I said, if you can safely experience the things your characters are experiencing, do so. Your novel will profit from it, and then, so will you!

You can read more creative fiction techniques on these pages on my website:

Writing Techniques
Writing a Novel
Writing Fiction
Creative Fiction Writing
Write a Bestseller

Here's a quote reminding you to put yourself in your character's shoes in order to really make your writing shine.

I have always used emotion as a writing tool. That goes back to me being on the stage. ~ Anne McCaffrey

If you need help polishing your novel, or help getting it started or finished, try any of my writing services to help you complete you project and get it ready for publishing. Just check out My Writing Services , and let me know how I can help you!

It's not too late to join my Write Your Description Just Right online writing course! Check it out here , quick before the last few seats are gone! See you in class!