Developing an Active Voice for Emotional Impact

Please welcome guest blogger Kat Duncan

Hi! I'm Kat Duncan, RWA-PRO, New England Chapter RWA member, author of seven full-length manuscripts, a novella and several short stories. I'm published in poetry and about to be published in novella length fiction. I'm always looking for new fictional territory to explore. At the end of this month I will be presenting a workshop on active writing. Not only will I thoroughly explain active versus passive grammar, but I will explain the many active ways you can put action, emotion and tension into your writing.

As a beginning writer several years ago, I was always looking for information on writing techniques and tips for improving my writing. I still am. One thing that puzzled and aggravated me was a lot of similar advice with no explanation behind it. "Why can't we use passive sentences?" I asked a fellow chapter member. "I don't know. We just can't." Grrrr…

I had to try to understand why. So I researched and hunted around and asked and even analyzed romance novels and guess what? Published authors use passive sentences at times. Not only that, but I learned that passive sentences were not the problem, but passive writing was. In the workshop I'm going to share with you a whole bunch of fascinating details about the differences between simply using "active sentences" and really using "active writing". Active writing makes good writing into great writing. Once you understand what you need to do, writing actively is easy. I don't have all the answers, but I can promise you one thing in this workshop: practical, useful techniques that you can start using in your writing the moment you learn about them. And I've included well-explained examples so you can see and feel exactly what to do.

This workshop is for writers who are looking for ways to perk up their writing or for writers who are having a hard time seeing what they need to fix in a scene that feels slow or dull. I will show you what I consider to be the single most important key to active writing and I will explain its variations and how you can use them. As a bonus I'm going to cover a few simple grammatical techniques and also show you a neat, easy way to create your own figurative language.

Come join me at the end of the month and get actively involved in your writing. Head on over to http://www.romance-ffp.com/event.cfm?EventID=164 to sign up today. The workshop runs from August 23^rd to August 30^th. See you there!