Where Normal Need Not Apply
Are there prerequisites to call ourselves a writer? No. If you write, you’re a writer. Period. But when we pay attention to other writers, every writer—no matter how successful—could find something to feel inadequate about if we let our self-doubt get a hold of us.
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Many groups and forums for self-published authors compare notes on what works (or doesn’t work) for promoting our work. I’m not a promotion expert—at all. But I’m sharing my experience on what I’ve tried so we all have another data point to consider.
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It’s hard to get our opening pages just right because we have to grab readers’ attention, introduce our characters and the story world, hint at a problem, etc. With everything we want to get across to the reader, we might dump too much information. How can we avoid info dumping or confusing readers at the beginning of our story?
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Most of us have probably heard the advice about how we should make our writing more authentic or genuine. But what does that mean, and how can we make it happen? Today, Lizzie Shane joins us to share her insights into mining our experiences for our stories.
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It’s time for another post as a Resident Writing Coach over at Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi’s Writers Helping Writers site, and this time we’re exploring 7 techniques we can use to keep our story moving while time passes for our characters.
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What makes a “strong female character”? We can struggle to define them because we see so few successful portrayals of such characters—especially in movies. Luckily, Diana Prince in Wonder Woman is a wonderful (ha!) example, so let’s break down her strengths so we can push for more characters like her in our stories.
If we know other writers at all, chances are good that we’ve heard a lot of advice. One of the most common pieces of advice? According to dozens of multi-published, bestselling authors, it’s “write every day.” Do they know better than us what it takes to be a writer? Is that a must-listen rule?
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My series about Indie Publishing Paths at Fiction University has highlighted some of the choices we have to make as self-published authors, and now it’s time to summarize everything we’ve learned in a step-by-step plan.
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Readers can interpret our characters as weak for many reasons, such as being passive, foolish, or lacking an arc. Another way a character might seem weak is using weak sentences in our writing, making them seem more wishy-washy than we intend.
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Clichés, tropes, and stereotypes all seem like signs of lazy writing. And they are—or at least, they can be. But it can be impossible to avoid all instances of stereotypical elements. So what should we do instead?
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