{"id":205,"date":"2013-04-09T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-09T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing_9\/"},"modified":"2015-11-25T12:22:18","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T19:22:18","slug":"tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing_9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing_9\/","title":{"rendered":"Tactical Tuesday: Advice for Self-Editing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-indent: 0in;\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-indent: 0in;\">\nConflict-conflict-conflict.<br \/>\nIf you plan to write a scene without it, stop. We avoid conflict in real life.<\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-indent: 0in;\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-indent: 0in;\">\nIn<br \/>\nfiction, conflict is the one element that has your readers turning the pages of<br \/>\na novel. Some authors mistakenly believe that conflict has to be physical. There<br \/>\nare other kinds of conflict, including but not limited to emotional, psychological,<br \/>\na race against time, and a fight with nature. Conflict can be in-your-face<br \/>\naction or subtle tension between characters.<\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-indent: 0in;\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-indent: 0in;\">\nMuch<br \/>\nis made of conflict, but there are a few elements to look for in your prose:<\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-indent: 0in;\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-indent: 0in;\">\nDoes<br \/>\nthe conflict match your targeted genre? A Freddy Krueger-like character isn\u2019t<br \/>\nlikely to appear in a contemporary romance. While romantic conflict can occur in<br \/>\nany genre, if it isn\u2019t a contemporary romance, that conflict must be a subplot.<\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-indent: 0in;\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-indent: 0in;\">\nDoes<br \/>\nthe conflict build to the resolution of the story? In other words, adding a<br \/>\nfistfight that has nothing to do with a plot or subplot, is useless. All<br \/>\nconflict should be a natural part of the story and build to the story\u2019s<br \/>\nconclusion.<\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-indent: 0in;\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-indent: 0in;\">\nAnd<br \/>\nspeaking of building to a conclusion: while subplots can be wrapped up at<br \/>\nvarious times in the story, it is not wise to start a conflict in a scene and<br \/>\nresolve it by the end of the scene. Even the end of the chapter is too soon.<br \/>\nAdding conflict and resolving it within the same scene or chapter begins to<br \/>\ntire the reader. If the conflict involved in the story doesn\u2019t sustain the<br \/>\nwhole story, an author may want to review his manuscript to see how it can be<br \/>\nmaintained or if it needs to be deleted.<\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-indent: 0in;\">\n<\/div>\n<p>Happy editing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Conflict-conflict-conflict. If you plan to write a scene without it, stop. We avoid conflict in real life. In fiction, conflict is the one element that has your readers turning the pages of a novel. Some authors mistakenly believe that conflict has to be physical. There are other kinds of conflict, including but not limited to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[504],"tags":[160,18,154,175,176,23],"class_list":["post-205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editing-writing-advice","tag-conflict-in-fiction","tag-editing-tips","tag-rewriting-advice","tag-scenes","tag-scenes-development","tag-writing-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}