Straight talk from the sisters about blood, sweat and ink
Recently, Robin and I had a conversation about how there seems to be a lot of confusion surrounding the differences between YA novels and MG novels. Most people know the basics, such as MG books are shorter than YA books, and MG protagonists are younger, under 14 as opposed to YA protagonists who are 15-18 …
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Epistolary novels use fictional letters, tweets, emails and other types of communication to create a story with a unique narrative style. This is not a new form, epistolary novels have been around since the 18th century, but after a downturn in popularity they are enjoying a renaissance and the trend shows no sign of slowing. …
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Writers agonize over this (and we should) but it’s difficult to know when to stop. How do you know if your writing is good enough? Is there a litmus test you can give your novel? Kind of, though it’s not one-size-fits-all, so I’m going to supply you with a template to make a test of …
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Can writers train themselves to write faster? This question is much debated. Many people say that yes, writers can learn to write fast, but (at least in my opinion) those people are short on actionable ways to make that happen. The common advice seems to be: 1) time yourself, 2) create self-imposed deadlines, and 3) …
Continue reading “5 Tips to Turn Slow Writers into Fast Drafters”
Last June, I started a ghost story for Camp NaNoWriMo. I really liked this idea. I’d set it in a historical period (the Gilded Age) which I know well. I’d selected a location I loved working with (Newport, RI) but for some reason the story wouldn’t gel. I had a beatsheet and an expanded outline …
Continue reading “Writer Struggles: 6 Steps to Get Unstuck”
Confession: before this week, I didn’t know much about video games or their history. Shameful for someone who now has “game writer” on her resume. So I decided to fix this before anybody found out, and started reading a book called GAME ON! And what I began learning led me down a rabbit hole of …
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Killing off a nice character, even a secondary one, is a big deal. Every single time I consider doing this as a writer, I struggle with my decision. Did I handle the death correctly? Will killing off this character just piss off the reader? Is this death achieving what I intended it to achieve within …
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Hannah Givens is always a favorite guest blogger at WriteOnSisters, and we’re thrilled she’s back. If you haven’t already done so, follow her wonderful book blog, power packed with great ideas for reading diverse books and authors. And now, take it away Hannah… I love sticky notes, and I’ve used them to organize my thoughts …
Continue reading “Guest Post: How to Use Scapple”
For more than a year I’ve been writing and story editing a dating adventure game called LongStory. At the start of the game, players select their avatar and gender, choosing whether they want to be referred to as “she”, “he” or “they”. We don’t write different dialogue or storylines for different player genders. LongStory is …
Continue reading “Writing Gender-Inclusive Romance”
Last year we ran a whole series of posts called Masterplots Theater from A to Z. Because we had some plots that started with the same letters, we had to cut several fantastic masterplots. ‘Forbidden Love’ was one of our unhappy victims as Heather wrote about the Fool Triumphant Masterplot instead. We did cover several …
Continue reading “Using the Forbidden Love Masterplot”