Katy Lambright Series

WRITING TIPS

Writing Tip #1:

POINT OF VIEW Did you know when you're reading a story, you're usually reading it through the point of view of a particular character? Some stories are written first-person (you know, it says I went to the store today instead of Joanne went to the store today, which would be third-person).

Maintaining a character's point of view in story-telling is really important. One of the goals of

a writer is to let the reader experience the heartaches and joys, challenges and victories, thoughts and feelings of the main character. So when you write, you decide which character is the most important, and then you tell the story THROUGH THAT CHARACTER'S EYES. If the character can't see it, hear it, feel it, smell it, or taste it, then he/she can't know about it.

Think of it this way... You can suppose your dog is hungry by the way he whines at you and tries to take you to his empty dog dish. But unless you're the dog, you can't feel the hunger, right? So instead of writing, "The dog looks sad because he's hungry," you would write, "The dog sat looking at me with sad eyes while I tried to focus on my math assignment. Suddenly he grabbed my pant leg and pulled me toward his empty food dish." The dog gets his point across, and the reader understands that the dog is hungry by experiencing what the character experienced. See?

What you want to do as a writer is climb into the skin of the character and write the story as if you are the character. Use the character's eyes, ears, tongue, fingers, nose, and emotions. Then you'll be creating life-like, memorable characters your reader will really care about.

Happy writing!

~Katy