diana-gabaldon

Conflict and character are the heart of good fiction, and good mystery has both of those in spades.

Don__ let characters talk pointlessly__hey only talk if there__ something to say.

Almost everybody understands that you have to have something at stake for a story to be good.

There__ a little trick called the Rule of Three: if you use any three of the five senses, it will make the scene immediately three-dimensional.

Just as an effective advertisement or page layout includes a lot of white space, a powerful scene requires immense restraint. Show things as simply as possible.

Good sex scene is about the exchange of emotions, not bodily fluids

But it wouldn__ have half the power of a story in which Jamie and Claire truly conquer real evil and thus show what real love is. Real love has real costs__nd they__e worth it. I__e always said all my books have a shape, and Outlander__ internal geometry consists of three slightly overlapping triangles. The apex of each triangle is one of the three emotional climaxes of the book: 1) when Claire makes her wrenching choice at the stones and stays with Jamie, 2) when she saves Jamie from Wentworth, and 3) when she saves his soul at the abbey. It would still be a good story if I__ had only 1 and 2__ut (see above), the Rule of Three. A story that goes one, two, three, has a lot more impact than just a one__wo punch.

To some extent, emotions are universal and can be treated that way; no matter what the participants_ orientation or preference, they have sex for the same reasons and can experience the same array of emotions in the process. But there are three important distinctions to be made: 1. The logistics of physiology 2. The basics of sexual attraction 3. Cultural impact on character and situation

One of the general patterns of good (i.e., striking and memorable) writing is the effect of repetition. If you use a certain element__ plot device, an image, a noticeable phrase__nce, readers may or may not notice it consciously, but it doesn__ disturb the flow of their reading. If you use that element twice, they won__ notice it consciously__ut they will notice it subconsciously, and it will add to the resonance of the writing or to their sense of depth and involvement (and if it__ a plot device, it will heighten the dramatic tension). But if you use that element three times, everybody will notice it the third time you do it.

Jamie__ viewpoint is expressed almost entirely in metaphor: If she was broken, she would slash him with her jagged edges, reckless as a drunkard with a shattered bottle. He__ using physical language, but he isn__ talking about the physical details of the situation. Claire alludes to her emotion and shows it by her actions, but Jamie is thinking directly in pure emotions.

Men have external genitalia, while women have internal genitalia. This simple difference makes a lot of difference in how they write about themselves__nd how you might write about your characters. Male writers don__ often address internal sensation in a character, because they don__ experience it (and probably often don__ realize consciously that it__ there). This accounts for a lot of Really Terrible sex scenes written by men (if you look at the __ad Sex-Scene Awards_ in any given year, you__l see that the vast majority are done by male writers).

As a rule of thumb, four consecutive lines of dialogue is about as much as you want to have without a tag.

If you can__ look a line of dialogue in the face and say exactly why it__ there__ake it out or change it.

Don__ go overboard in avoiding __aid._ Basically, __aid_ is the default for dialogue, and a good thing, too; it__ an invisible word that doesn__ draw attention to itself.

You don__ need to know the purpose as you write, but when you read over something you__e written, you should be able to point to any given element__e that a line of dialogue, a descriptive phrase, a plot point__nd say why it__ there.

For a different woman, a different relationship, a different situation, gentleness might have been the proper, the only approach__ut not for this woman, in these circumstances. The only thing that will cleanse Claire (and reassure her: look at what she says at the end of it. She feels safe again, having felt the power and violence in him) is violence. And__he most important point here__amie pays attention to what she wants, rather than proceeding with his own notion of how it should be, even though it__ a sensible notion and the one most people would have.

Watch a good movie sometime without reference to what__ happening but only with attention to how it was photographed; you__l see the change of focus__oom in, pan out, close-up on face, fade to black, open from above__asily. You want to do that in what you write; it__ one of the things that keep people__ eyes on the page, though they__e almost never conscious of it.

Dialogue doesn__ take place in a vacuum. Dialogue is contradictory, in that it can either speed up or slow down a passage.