Yesterday, Kristen Lamb ran an encore of one of my posts from last year on her blog. We both liked that post because it discusses the importance of leaving the reader room to use their imagination. In the post, I made an aside about the danger of including a teaser excerpt […]
Pin It
Read More
Last time we touched on beat sheets because of a guest post I wrote for one of my Blogiversary winners. Today we’re going to talk about a subject that came up with one of my other Blogiversary winners: prologues. Prologues are hated by many editors and agents. Surprisingly, I’ve heard […]
Pin It
Read More
I do a lot of beta reading for friends, and sometimes they come to me with a question along the lines of: “I’ve really struggled with x aspect of this story, and I’m wondering if I should just abandon it. Can you take a look and see if this story can […]
Pin It
Read More
What makes some poorly written books fall flat on their face while others succeed despite their flaws? One common answer is “storytelling ability.” But what is storytelling? The concept can seem vague and immeasurable—rather like “voice.” A recent experience with two poorly written books gave me insight into how a […]
Pin It
Read More
I don’t watch soap operas, but a bizarre conversation tangent (in other words, a perfectly normal conversation for me) triggered my thoughts comparing soap operas to novels. On the surface, they seem very similar. They both have characters, tension, and conflict. However, the more I thought about it, the more […]
Pin It
Read More
While I’m on holiday vacation this week, I’ll share a post from my early days of blogging. We’ve all heard of those eye-rolling, telling “information dumps,” yet at some point, we all have to get chunks of information across to the reader. My usual technique with world-building is to show, […]
Pin It
Read More
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. […]
Pin It
Read More
Michael’s Six Stage Plot Structure describes a character’s inner journey in relation to external plot events. Over the course of six stages and five turning points, a character will stop living in fear and instead live courageously.
Pin It
Read More
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 […]
Pin It
Read More
I love when I make my readers think. Even better is when they turn around and make me think even deeper about an issue. *smile* Yesterday, K.J. Pugh blogged about my last post (where I talked about cliffhangers and hooks) and brought up the issue of sequels I briefly mentioned. No, […]
Pin It
Read More