Nano Tip #27: Word Clouds
We all have words we love too much. Maybe for you it’s something fancy, like “effulgent” or “apodictic,” or something sillier, like “smellypants.” And because we love these words, we will use them too often, until our readers begin to snicker quietly at us. But those big, obvious words are easy to spot. We’ll whack them in the second draft. And even if we fail to do so, our friends will probably slap us the fiftieth time they encounter the word “prognosticate.” It’s the little overused words that kill us, that quietly undermine our text without us ever noticing. My big overused word was

Nano Tip #25: Read It Backwards
This is my ante-penultimate Nano Tip, so you must be nearing the end of your fantabulous NaNoWriMo novel. Soon you’ll need to read the whole thing over with an editorial eye, polishing every sentence for sparkling clarity. But how to concentrate on mere clauses and word choice while your amazing story is sweeping you along in its wake? How can you focus on all those pesky details when your characters are bleeding heroically onto the page? Three words: Read it backwards.

Nano Tip #23: Change Your Brain
So . . . you’re more than two-thirds done with NaNoWriMo, and maybe you’re starting to crumple a bit. Your dialog sounds forced, your action scenes are flat, and your plot twists have all turned to spaghetti. What can you do to break out of this slump? Here’s my tip for the day: change your brain! “Um, what now?” you may ask. Allow me to explain . . . T

Nano Tip #21: Writers Re-read
Being a writer should change your daily life. You should scan the newspaper for story ideas, deconstruct old fairy tales in the shower, and eavesdrop shamelessly in the name of dialog development. And being a writer should also change the way you read. The next time you read a scene that makes your socks roll up, make yourself stop and learn. Even if it interrupts your readerly plea

Nano Tip #19: Read Out Loud
If you ever take a linguistics class, you will hear this catechism from the first day on: 1) Speech is primary. 2) Speech is universal among human cultures, and separates us from other animals. 3) Speech is innately acquired-–-unlike writing, which is a skill that must be learned. 4) Therefore speech (not writing) is the primary material for linguistic study. Yes, dear NaNoWriMor-ers, writing is important. But speech is the bee’s knees. So when you want to measure your burgeoning novel against a basic human yardstick, read that sucker out loud.