Content gained from Carol Louise Streeve I had Stephanie Jaetger: attached but I’m not certain which presented.

I had the chance to attend the Utah Writers League conference this year because of the generously of a fellow writer, who couldn’t go. Here are my notes.
1. Select words wisely. Lie: don’t need sat down> cut down. Completely destroyed> cut completely.
 Avoid conflicting words.ie: Nearly entirely,
 Select words wisely.
 Avoid redundant, unnecessary works
 All words need a reason to be on the page.
 Modifiers: If it is important to have certain hair put it in, if not leave it out.
2. Avoid clichés. It can date your work. They are considered lazy writing.
 Exchange it for a while when during
 Break up sentences to flow easier.
3. Action: shorter sentences will advance your action scenes.
 Use proper order of actions. Cause and effect. Action first cause second results
 Dialog: said and asked are the most popular to use. Maybe 90% of the time as they are invisible.
 Condense your sentences.
 Not all dialog is spoken
 Editors look for too much white space or too little white space both can be a cause for rejection.
 Summary vs dialog: let conversations, not a summary, advance the scene. Shows personality. Let’s you picture it more.
4. Hook your readers. The first hook needs to be in the first 13-15 lines. Avoid info dump in first the paragraph.
 Show conflict in first 10 pages.
 Ex: Michael Vey: “have you found the last two?”
 18: the bullies are zapped by their target.
 Ex: Hunger Games:
 1 “of course, she did. This is the day of the reaping.”
 16: the reaping begins.
 Ex: Harry Potter:
 They were the people you’d expect to be involved in anything mysterious.
 15: Harry left to be raised by the Dursleys.
5. Foreshadowing with caution:
 Drop hints.
 Telegraphing is giving away too much too soon and runs the suspense.
 Sees if it’s necessary
6. Use active not passive voice.
 watch for any form to be (am, are, is, was
 Ex: She is running > she ran.
 Look for actions in the sentence. She was caught by a police officer.
 is the person or thing doing the action at the front of the sentence.
 Ex: The police officer caught her.
7. You can’t bring a gun on stage and not fire it. Known as Chekov’s gun.
 Use the person or object or say why you don’t’
 Let your hero be heroic. Make sure one character overshadow the other. Also, avoid unnecessary characters.
 Bonus: New paragraphs
 New topic
 New time
 New place
 New person speaking
 New to produce a dramatic effect
 When a character talks in more than one paragraph; the previous paragraphs don’t need quote mark if they continue dialog to next paragraph.
 If there is something you don’t like it, fix it. Otherwise, it will bother you.
Do you have something to add? If you do, please respond in the comment section of this blog. Thanks.