Where Normal Need Not Apply
Those of you who follow me on Twitter might have heard that my family and I took a two-week road trip a couple of months ago. And yes, it was “epic.” We traveled over 2100 miles on our way to visit four National Parks, two National Monuments, and one Tribal […]
Last time, we shared suggestions on how to kick our muse into gear. One of my favorite techniques is using music. With NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month—challenge yourself to write 50K words during November) fast approaching, now is the perfect time to revisit all the ways music can help our writing. […]
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Yesterday, I tweeted a link to a great post by Sally Apokedak about not cheating the reader by skipping emotional scenes. Some writers struggle with heavy scenes. They’re uncomfortable with “invading” the privacy of their characters. They worry about creating laughably cheesy scenes. Or they think a scene that’s essential […]
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This post originally ran several months ago at the Girls With Pens blog. It’s one of my favorites because I’m always looking for checklists to make sure I’m not missing anything while editing and revising. I hope you find it useful. Whether we plot our stories ahead of time or write […]
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I’ve been having a great conversation with Serena Yung in the comments of one of my posts about voice from a few weeks ago, so voice has been on my mind again this week. When I found a fantastic article by author Julie Leto about voice and how it relates to our writing, […]
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In my last post about Google search terms, I mentioned that we sometimes have lots of content around a search’s keywords and yet have never answered the question directly. In that case, Google just gave us an idea for a blog post. *smile* One search term that led people to my blog this […]
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Whether we’re a plotter, pantser, or somewhere in between, we all eventually have to take the time and make our scenes the best they can be. This week I have a guest post at the Girls With Pens blog on how to do that. (Edited to redirect link, as GWP has shut down.) […]
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I’m excited to share today’s guest post by editor A. Victoria Mixon with everyone. Her new book The Art & Craft of Story: 2nd Practitioner’s Manual recently came out and is a great addition to our writing craft library. In fact, her blog tour posts have been excerpts from this […]
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Kristen Lamb asked an interesting question on her blog last week, Are We Born to Create? Her posts often make me think and inspire my own posts here. (Her unofficial muse skill is one of the reasons I’ve dubbed her “awesome-dipped-in-glitter” (TM). *smile*) More specifically, she wondered if creative people […]
Last time, I used the Green Lantern movie to illustrate how not to plot a story. This time, we’re going to look at the Green Lantern characters. As noted before, Green Lantern felt superficial and formulaic. Sure, it’d be easy to say that it was a comic book movie and therefore […]
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