Where Normal Need Not Apply
We’ve heard of rewriting, revising, and even re-imagining, but what does “re-envisioning” mean? I recently came across the word in a great post by Juliette Wade about how to redo a scene without rewriting. When a scene isn’t working, it’s tempting to blame the scene and get rid of it. […]
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Wait…what? Well, we want to make our antagonist good for our story anyway. *smile* Kristen Lamb has been running a fantastic series on antagonists (Part One, Part Two, Villains, Balancing Evil, Inner and Outer Demons). She shares more gems than I can capture here, so definitely check out her posts. For […]
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Do you dread that question? If you tell the cashier at the grocery store you’re a writer and they ask what your book is about, do you have an answer? All writers who want readers have to be able to answer that question. Whether it’s our brother-in-law at a holiday […]
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Yes, I’m still under deadline, but an interesting issue came up in the comments on my last post about perfectionism. Perfectionists tend to be nitpicky, no surprise there. But there’s a time when that trait is very helpful, and a time when we need to ignore the compulsion to tweak. […]
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Lately I’ve been struck by how similar music is to writing. Both arts use a non-visual medium to create an emotion. And often, just like writing, music is meant to create movies in our mind for a do-it-yourself music video. If you’ve ever watched a movie with the sound turned […]
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If we don’t want to waste time writing a story that will never get anywhere, we have to make sure we’ll be able to complete it. And guess what? It’s not completed when we, as writers, think it is. Going from seed idea to completion happens over two stages. So […]
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We’re almost through with the list of how to create strong characters. So far, we’ve ensured they had goals and contrasted their self-image and persona. Next up… Do They Have Flaws? To feel lifelike, our characters must have flaws like real people. Without flaws, our characters risk making our whole […]
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Last time, we looked at a simple list for What Makes a Female Character Strong based on The Female Character Flowchart. But if that list is so simple, why does it seem so difficult to create a strong character? Why do so many fail and fall into stereotypes? Maybe because […]
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In my last post, we had a lively discussion in the comments that prompted me to think about things authors do to trick readers. Some of these are good and some of them I call “cheap author tricks”. What makes the difference? Whether or not the trick is faked. We […]
Info dump? Infamous? You better believe it. The most egregious offender even has a name: the “As you know, Bob.” Imagine dialogue along the lines of, “As you know, Bob, Jane is our sister.” *cringe* Does anyone actually speak like that? Would you ever tell someone something they already know? […]
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