Straight talk from the sisters about blood, sweat and ink
Last week I confessed the reasons Why I Haven’t Finished My Novel, and #1 is that I over-revise. To recap, that means when a story isn’t quite working, I change it in huge, drastic ways that make it a totally different story. Sometimes the main character even sports a whole new personality! My solution to …
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When I decided to become a novelist, I thought I could whip out a novel in a year. After all, I knew how to write – I was a professional screenwriter. I could structure stories and develop characters and string together words in a compelling fashion. Why wouldn’t I complete a book in a year? …
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As a screenwriter, I had no choice but to learn a thing or fifty about writing dialogue. Scripts are 50% dialogue. The other half is physical action. That’s it. There are no other ways to express the story in a screenplay – no inner monologues, no poetic descriptions, and no narrated explanations. Only dialogue and …
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Earlier this month I wrote a post called “Dropping the F-Bomb in YA Lit” and cited a study done by Brigham Young University that counted the number of swear words in bestselling YA novels. The results? There is cursing in most YA books. This sparked outrage from some and a nod to reality from others. …
Continue reading “X-Rated: Should YA Books Have a Rating System?”
Here at the Writeonsisters, the last Saturday of the month is always What We’re Reading. This month it also happens to be “W” day of The A to Z Blog Challenge. There are many book themes we could have picked that start with W (writing, whodunit, war, etc.), but we chose “wicked.” I guess we’re …
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There’s a well-known line from George R.R. Martin’s book A Dance With Dragons: “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies… The man who never reads lives only one.” Truth! With that in mind, here’s 9 Vicarious Lives I’ve lived thanks to books… I traveled the galaxy with a towel. (Hitchhiker’s Guide …
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I read constantly. I bet you do too because, since you’re reading this blog, you have access to the Internet where there’s an infinite amount of stuff to read – emails, articles, blogs, tweets, books, essays – all at your nimbly typing fingertips. People read more now than ever, not just for work, school or …
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(“L” is for LOVE in the A to Z Blog Challenge) If the interwebs are to be believed, YA readers are sick of insta-love – that moment when the heroine sees a cute stranger and decides immediately he’s the one! On Goodreads people have made “No Insta-Love” shelves and there’s even a Listopia “Young Adult …
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(Yes, I scored the letter “F” in the A to Z Blog Challenge!) At a writing conference the topic of swearing in YA lit came up. I was surprised some writers vehemently believed you couldn’t put the F-word in a YA novel. They claimed no agent or editor would publish it with that word (or …
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This April, the Write On Sisters are participating in the A to Z Blog Challenge. That means on each day in April (except Sunday) we write a blog connected to the letter of that day. It all starts tomorrow, April 1st, with Jenn blogging the letter A (Anthropology and Culture in Writing), and continues with …
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