Writing

Here's a link to save for December, when you'd rather watch It's a Wonderful Life a thousand times than revise your book. Jenny Crusie's Basics of Fiction class handout is a neat little primer on structuring and revising a story. It's all here: goal/motivation/conflict, character … [Read more...] about Jenny Crusie’s basics of fiction

By now you probably have a lot of awful, no-good, terrible scenes that you've kept because throwing them out would ruin your word count. Here's how to revise them. And, bonus, there are questions at the end you can use to critique your friends' manuscripts. But not today! Do … [Read more...] about Revising scenes with Jenny Crusie

One of my LiveJournal friends, Hannah, does a wonderful, irregular series of posts on gratitude. I love these posts for their randomness and poetry. (Although it occurs to me that I haven't said so lately. Hey, Hannah: I love this series!) Today would be a good day to have … [Read more...] about Gratitude

I like this article from Writer's Digest on creating tension and heightening stakes because it includes a section on dialogue, whereas most other articles on the topic focus on plot alone. … [Read more...] about Creating tension, heightening stakes

I know at least one of my writing buddies is struggling with fight scenes, so here's an article from Janice Hardy on making action scenes work. … [Read more...] about FIGHT!

Imagine that you are dying. If you had a terminal disease would you finish this book? Why not? The thing that annoys this 10-weeks-to-live self is the thing that is wrong with the book. So change it. Stop arguing with yourself. Change it. See? Easy. And no one had to die. — Anne … [Read more...] about Listening to your 10-weeks-to-live self

One more week to go, and if you're not sick and tired of the stupid thing at this point, I question whether you're human. My book? No, things are okay. I guess. I mean, I totally love my book and everything, but...it's not quite as clever as I thought. Yeah, like yesterday? I … [Read more...] about Writing a novel, a love story

It's Saturday, and I know you've been slacking. (Don't look at me in that tone of voice.) So I have not one, but six things for you to read! 6 Articles for a Stronger, Faster, Better First Draft includes some great stuff, but read one or two now and save the rest for later, … [Read more...] about Six tips for first drafts

Kathleen Temean has an excellent list of ways to fix a sagging middle in your novel. * Start “the ticking clock”—put a time constraint on solving a problem. * Bring up an issue from the main character’s past that adds to their current problems. … [Read more...] about Fixing a Sagging Middle