One of the ways we create compelling writing is by creating a need within our readers to keep turning pages. So a common piece of advice is to create hooks—phrases, sentences, ideas, questions, etc.—to fuel that need within readers. Today, Mary Buckham’s here to touch on the 9 types of hooks and to answer frequent questions about hooks.

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How to Be a Better Hooker (in Writing!) — Guest: Mary Buckham

USA Today bestselling author Mary Buckham is back with Part Two of her guest post on writing active settings that keep our story flowing and connect readers to our characters. Today, she’s sharing the second biggest hurdle to writing great descriptions.

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Writing Active Settings, Part 2 — Guest: Mary Buckham

The trick to sharing setting information (which our readers do need) without dragging down the pace is to write active descriptions. Active descriptions let the reader imagine the setting in their mind, keep them anchored in the story, and slip in information so seamlessly that they never realize they’re reading descriptions.

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Writing Active Settings, Part 1 — Guest: Mary Buckham

There’s no wrong way to get to “The End” when drafting our book. That includes how some think about chapters as they write and some think about scenes.

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Building a Story: Chapters vs. Scenes

Several writing craft issues tend to be hallmarks of what’s called “lazy writing.” The practice of head hopping is usually considered lazy writing, but we might not understand why it earns that label. Let’s learn more and see how we can avoid head hopping and the “lazy writing” trap.

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Why Is Head Hopping Considered Lazy Writing?

We’ve been talking about the difference types of transitions we might create between scenes and plot events. Today, we’re focusing on the types of sentences that will strengthen our scene endings (and thus our scenes).

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How to Create Scene Endings that Hook Readers

Last time, we discussed how to identify and fix episodic writing to make our stories stronger with the “But” and “Therefore” rule. However, there’s another option for transitioning from scene to scene: the “meanwhile.”

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Transition Techniques: Meanwhile, in Our Subplot…

Deep POV relates the story from inside our character’s head, and subtext hides meanings between our words. Together, those concepts develop our characters and the relationship between them.

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Deep POV and Hidden Messages in Subtext — Guest: Lisa Hall-Wilson