In a guest post on C.S. Lakin’s blog, Steve Alcorn offers advice for going big in your fiction. “Writing big means going beyond mere words—it means creating images in your readers’ minds, a movie that will involve all their senses and keep them on the edge of their seats,” Alcorn says. He suggests the following techniques:
- The Power of Suggestion. Alcorn says our writing should suggest, not specify. Describing your scenes through a character’s eyes and choosing vivid language can create an impression for your reader, without the need for describing every aspect of a scene in detail. But, the few details you choose should be specific and set the mood of your scene.
- Show, Don’t Tell. “Quite often, the temptation to add that extra bit of telling comes from not trusting ourselves and what we’ve written, as well as not trusting the reader to get it,” Alcorn writes. “Even experienced writers can lapse and make this mistake.”
