Consider the following sentence: The green grass was full of doctors, all dressed in their dazzlingly white surgical coats. Now consider Sylvia Plath's version: The lawn was white with doctors. (from The Bell Jar) I don't think you'll even have to think about it when I ask: Which is the better sentence? But what about…
Quick Tips #2: Write Small
It's tempting to think you have to "write big" about big issues. It's much more powerful, however, to write quietly; to whisper the most profound things. Even better, to "get out of the way" and let those things whisper their power all by themselves. Often what we leave out - or what we gently brush past…
Throat Clearing
Today I want to suggest one way you can improve your short fiction. Stop clearing your throat. Throat clearing is what many writers do at the beginning of a short story. They set the scene. They ease us in. But as the name of the concept implies, much of it is an unnecessary and ineffectual prelude to the good…
Quick Tips #1: Adverbs
I'm introducing a new series called Quick Tips. Every now and then (I'll try for every fortnight or so), I'll post about an issue we writers tend to struggle with, and I'll make quick suggestions for how to address it. I'll try to keep the posts under or around 200 words. I'll keep on posting…
Welcome to my new website
I've had a facelift! Welcome to my refreshed website, with a giant photo of me on it. (I paid a professional for that photo shoot, so I'm jolly well going to plaster the results wherever I can.) You'll notice a few changes to navigation: the menu of categories, plus a few other features, are at…
Left Brain, Right Brain – can you be an editor and a writer?
I’ve just launched a new Facebook page – one dedicated to my creative writing. It’s called Patricia A Bell, Author (@thebellbirdwrites). I've decided I need to separate my creative writing and publishing from my proofreading and editing business, and build my author platform. I used to write a blog post here and then post it…
Punctuation is SEXY (and using it properly will get you more dates online)
So I have a gripe. A grammarian gripe, if you will. A punctuation protestation. I'm pissed off. I'm aghast. I'm fed up. I'm THIS CLOSE to giving an unsuspecting passer-by a good slap. And you, lucky readers, are about to hear all about it. Read that sentence again. Take particular note of the plural: readers.…
Inaugural NZ National Writers’ Forum
Stuck in a room full of writers for an entire weekend? It would be some people's idea of a nightmare. It was my idea of Heaven at the inaugural National Writers' Forum in Auckland. The forum was the brainchild of the New Zealand Society of Authors (of which I'm a member). Sometimes inaugural events have…
Show, don’t tell
“Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” This quote by Chekhov may be familiar to some of you. It encapsulates perfectly one of the rules of good fiction writing: Show, don’t tell. Even my eight-year-old daughter knows what it means – they’re taught it at school.…
The Book Exchange
I’ve achieved some rather major literary goals this year, and last night I celebrated with two lovely women. There's me in the middle. (Those holes in my top are a design feature, not a result of drunken undressing in the dark. I wish.) On the right is Joanna, and to the left is Sara: the…
Patricia Bell, Author 