Where Normal Need Not Apply
(Note: I am not Tawna Fenske, so that title is not a euphemism for anything. Sorry. However, this post might include a reference to a shower scene of one woman with two guys. Or not.) I mentioned last time that one day of the weekend was taken up by writing-related […]
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(Side note: Do you know how troublesome it is to find a picture of someone bound and/or gagged that doesn’t look…well, inappropriate for this blog? *snicker*) Writers all know the type—the character who refuses to play by the rules, who doesn’t communicate with us, or who wants to be a […]
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This must be the week for me stepping into controversial topics. It’s a good thing I’m still wearing my flameproof jacket from my last post on plot vs. character. *smile* It’s been a while since Meghan Cox Gurdon’s article at the Wall Street Journal and her contention that young adult (YA) […]
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Today’s post is part of the #PotterChat blog hop, a collection of fantastic blogs, Twitter chats, and prizes. Check out Susan Sipal’s post at Harry Potter for Writers for all the details. For those who didn’t win a prize in my Milestone Blogiversary Contest, you might want to complete the scavenger […]
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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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A few weeks ago, we talked about about branding and blogging and how to create connections with others. People who feel connected to us are more likely to be willing to give our book a try or to help us promote. Connected readers might become our front lines in our […]
Believe it or not, I sometimes actually follow my own advice. *smile* Recently, I helped score a few contest entries, just like I recommend in my post about why all writers should volunteer to judge contests. One of the entries was—I’m afraid there’s no nice way to say this—dreadful. The […]
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Some people post their work online all the time. Photographers have Shutterstock. Artists have deviantART. Non-fiction authors often base their books on their blog posts. What about fiction authors? That’s a little trickier. We’re not talking about flash fiction, blog hop entries, and the like here. If we limit the […]
When we first get an idea for a story, the characters who will populate that story often start out shadowy and vague. Either before the writing process (if we’re plotters) or during the writing process (if we’re pantsers), we have to develop those characters into something solid and colorful. We […]
All writers get their ideas from somewhere. The question is—where, or what, is that somewhere? I don’t believe muses are entities like those venerated in Ancient Greece. However, when my subconscious comes up with things I never saw coming and never could have consciously created in a million years, it’s […]
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