Sometimes I am a dumbass. I know you find it hard to believe, but it is true. Some of my professed dumbassedness is self-inflicted. I go against my gut, or more often, my schedule, and I get myself dug deep into some pit of Hell I don’t want to be in. This happens with good … Read more
Last week we considered the question of What If with regard to creating complex characters. I thought it would be good to push the Muse a bit more and continue with the What If conceptidea to help us brainstorm our book ideas. You can use What If to create characters and plot. You can also use What If to … Read more
Ideally, before you begin writing, you have the details of your novel worked out. But, before that, there is that flash of random inspiration of something that could, at some point, become a novel. Those flashes can come from anywhere. You could see a news story, and suddenly you have a dynamic plot that comes … Read more
I’ve been talking about writing as a business for the last few weeks, and for those of you in the back row mumbling about my topic of choice, I have a tiny bit of banter left, and next week we move on to something you might actually want to read. Okay? But, for now, I thought … Read more
I thought I would start a discussion on critique groups. As you sit back to review your writing and plot out your next writing adventure, you might want to consider joining a critique group. If you are unfamiliar, a critique group is a bunch of serious writers sitting down on a regular basis to review … Read more
I was sitting with my critique partner last week, and the topic of the premise came up. We were talking about his new story outline, which he has been working on to have the structure solid before he began writing. This is a great idea, especially for pansters (those writers who write by the seat … Read more
Over the last few weeks, we’ve been contemplating Show v Tell, trying to offer some information about the elusive topic and trying to explain why, in fiction, showing is better than telling for the majority of your story, though both are necessary. Now that you have the general idea about what showing is compared to … Read more
Last week we talked about the showing part in Show v Tell. This week we will take a look at the telling side of the equation. What is telling? Telling is writing with a style that uses primarily narrative exposition. It is explaining the story to the reader. The writer uses this style to provide … Read more
Show v Tell is the most ethereal craft concept to learn for new writers. Show v tell is so elusive that even a search on Amazon for books on the topic brings up very few results, and few of those results appear to be promising. Even Writer’s Digest only has one title available (Showing & … Read more
When you think about Scene Setting, you are usually describing a place. I say you in the plural sense in that you are the writer, the narrator, the POV character, the hero, the villain, everyone. So it is possible to get confused on which “you” you are at any given moment. Consequently, it might be … Read more