Mary Grehan is an Irish author whose debut novel, Love is the Easy Bit, has recently been released. You can read our review of it here. Mary's top tips for writing are...
1. You don’t have to repeat yourself. Repeating yourself is
nagging and the reader does not want to be nagged. The astute reader will get
it first time.
2. Vary the pace of your writing, from slow to fast and back to
slow.
3. Read your writing aloud, all of it, not just the dialogue.
This will tell you if it is flowing. It will also show you the pace of the
writing which you may want to vary.
4. You can use
dialogue to expose the quirks and ticks of human behaviour, show how people
don’t listen to each other, how they say one thing and do another, how they say
one thing and think another, how they repeat themselves, how they contradict
themselves…
5. You might have written the most clever, lyrical piece of
prose, but if it is not serving the story or your characters, it will have to
go. Sorry!
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