Category: *Writing Craft

Screenwriter Tips for Novelists: 3 Things that Keep Your Story on the Road (not the Goat Path)

Last week I talked about Mapping the Mushy Middle of a story so that your characters don’t get waylaid on some meandering goat path of grass-eating boredom before finally arriving in Act III. Or worse, get stuck in the swamp and never reach The End! It comes down to knowing your destinations in Act II: …
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A Matter of Style

Last week I tackled the slithery little element of fiction writing called voice, which inadvertently led me into the equally slippery area of style. And don’t get me started on tone. I’m not sure that even warrants a discussion. When I consider style, my thoughts immediately go to fashion. I’ve often been told I’m a …
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Reading Aloud: Why Hearing Your Book Is Important

Last week I gave a few tips from The Oxford Inklings on improving your critique group. You can read that post here if you missed it. This week I want to share one of that group’s most valuable writing tips. The Inklings all advocated reading works-in-progress aloud. Historically this make sense, they were from a …
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The Mystery of Mysteries, Part I

  If you search for “how to write a mystery”, 43,900,000 links pop up. It’s no mystery then to conclude that lots of people write about writing mysteries. Maybe there are so many links because there are so many kinds of mysteries. Maybe there are so many links because more people write about writing mysteries …
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Screenwriter Tips for Novelists: Mapping the Mushy Middle

Last week I wrote about how to Create Character Change and the importance of making sure your character’s flaw is foiling her in Act II. This led one of my fellow Write On Sisters to comment that the “mushy middle” is a hard section to write. That it is. Robin wrote about it here from …
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Writing Funny: With Molly Campbell

We came across the hilarious Molly Campbell through the wonders of the Twitterverse and asked her to write for us about the challenges of humor writing. Molly is a two-time Erma Bombeck award-winning author who has a wonderful humor blog. And you can follow her at Twitter @mollydcampbell. Her very funny book, Characters in Search …
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Voice: Feel Me Hear Me

A while back, I touched on voice and I thought I might explore this essential writing element more fully. I did a little hunting and decided, in terms of creative writing, voice has two meanings by most standards: the author’s style, conveying her attitudes, personality, and the quality that makes her writing unique; and characteristic …
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Your Business Card: Valuable Real Estate

We all have them. Business cards, that is. Writers probably spent a combined time, across all of our efforts creating them, that would have equaled the time to pen an epic tome. You know what I mean. Which layout design? What picture? Font style and size? Oh, and the info to include in those few …
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Reading For Writers 101: Character Change, part 2

Last week’s lesson was about how Character Change makes a story more satisfying, and I evoked the good name of James Bond to make my point. Audiences and readers, now more than ever, want characters who grow and evolve. But figuring out your character’s change is just one step; you also need to develop how …
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Master the Meet-cute

I’m obsessed with the meet-cute. If you don’t know what a meet-cute is, it’s those quirky, funny and/or sexy ways two people meet for the first time. This is most often used for a romantic meeting, but it also works for future friends. Most people know the term meet-cute from the movie The Holiday, but …
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