To Be or Not to Be: Avoiding Passive Verbs

Robin, Heather and I had been crit partners for months and I found their comments incredibly insightful and helpful. Meanwhile, an editor friend of mine took a crack at a few of my chapters and leveled the comment: “too many passive verbs, kill as many forms of the verb to be as you can.” I’d …
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Navigating Architectural Spaces in your Fiction: From Apse to Ziggurat:

I happen to love architecture, I always have. I’m one of those strange people who measures time by my landmark acquisitions. However, I believe anyone can learn to write about structures (from castles, to space stations, to huts) by asking themselves a few simple questions about how they want to use the building in the …
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Self-Editing: How To Pull the Weeds From Your Manuscript.

Exhilarated that I received several requests for full reads on the manuscript of my first novel, I saw myself on the fast track to getting published. Most of my writer buds had sent out tons of queries and received “thanks, but no thanks” that’s if they received any response at all. I’d only sent out …
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What We’re Reading: For Halloween

Sometimes what you really need is a great book. The Sisters can sympathize. As writers, we are avid readers. On the last Saturday of each month, we will share our book picks for the current season. Nothing sends me under the covers with a book faster than the first wisps of autumn. The family has …
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Smell the Coffee: How to Use the 5 Senses to Improve Your Writing

When I start a new story I write for dialogue and action. I try to keep in mind what the character is sensing and include those nuances as often as I can, but mostly I wait and layer it in during the second draft phase. If done well, using the five senses should be seamless …
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5 Reasons to Outline Your Novel

There are writers who come up with an idea and just start writing and see where the story takes them. There are writers who mull over a story in their minds for months or years before they start writing. There are writers who write short stories and use those to create a novel. Then there …
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Screenwriter Gone Rogue

Definition: Rogue [as modifier] – an elephant or other large wild animal driven away or living apart from the herd and having savage or destructive tendencies: a rogue elephant. Going rogue sounds so rebellious, like I’m a wild woman who refused to follow the rules of the herd. Look at me! Out here by my …
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About

The WriteOnSisters started this blog to share their knowledge, experience, successes and failures, straight up with no bull. The result is a site full of helpful information on writing craft, the road to publication, and the writers’ life. Whether you’re a pantser or a plotter, a newbie or a veteran, there’s something here for you. …
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