Straight talk from the sisters about blood, sweat and ink
I’m fascinated by story structure, particularly by stories that are not perfectly linear. I love reading parallel plotlines, stream of consciousness narratives and stories with reverse chronology. I’ve experimented with all of these forms. And that means I’ve written a flashforward. A flashforward is a scene that takes place outside of the current timeline of …
Continue reading “Writing a Flashforward”
I’m a newbie to hardcore worldbuilding. Up until recently, I’d only developed stories that took place in the real world. I may have put fantastical creatures in the stories, but the setting was Earth as we know it. Now I’m writing a novel that takes place 100 years in the future, still on Earth, but it …
Continue reading “1 Key Question for Worldbuilding (+ A Handy Checklist)”
While you might think anything that tightens a story and trims the word count is good thing, it’s important to realized this does not apply to underwriting. Underwriting is the reverse of overwriting: it’s when the author is too economical with their words, and critical aspects of the story come off as foggy, lacking in logic …
Continue reading “7 Ways Underwriting Sabotages Your Story”
Welcome guest blogger Sara Letourneau! We connected with Sara on Twitter and through the many places she blogs (see bio below). Sara is super friendly, upbeat and knowledgeable, especially about writing fantasy, so we’re thrilled to have her here today to shed some light on the differences and similarities between high fantasy and epic fantasy. Take it …
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Creating characters to populate your novel or screenplay is a lot of fun. You get to devise different backgrounds and opinions and alliances and secrets and all kinds of interesting stuff that brings the cast to life. But you can have the most detailed character sketches and richly drawn cast ever, and your story could …
Continue reading “Character Development: The Reaction Chart”
Overwriting is a common problem for new writers. Even experienced writers can fall victim to the issue. It’s something, as a reader, that drives me nuts. It’s also something I’m guilty of needing friendly reminders about in my own early drafts. Overwriting is defined as: a tendency to write too much, or too ornately. A …
Continue reading “12 Tips to avoid Overwriting”
Have you heard of The Unslut Project? It began with Emily Linden sharing her middle school diaries online in a Tumblr page. It’s now a memoir and a documentary. Unslut is the all-too-common story of a preteen girl who was slut shamed and bullied. Lindin shared her story to reassure other girls suffering from sexual …
Continue reading “The Influence of Books on YAs”
I have always used style sheets. This might be because I come from an academic background where adhering to style criteria is a required component for a submission. So I found it strange to learn most fiction writers skip this helpful step. What is a style sheet? A style sheet is a single document where …
Continue reading “3 Reasons Authors Need Style Sheets”
Originally posted on Jan. 27, 2014. Updated and reposted on Jan. 18, 2016. This question has been on my mind a lot considering that over the past year I’ve gone from no day job to two concurrent part-time jobs. How much to work while pursuing a creative dream is a common dilemma. There’s no easy answer …
Continue reading “Writers: Should You Quit Your Day Job?”
Welcome guest blogger Alex Hurst! As a slush reader for a Science Fiction and Fantasy magazine, Alex has first hand experience getting stories out of the slush pile and into the hands of editors. And today she’s going to share what makes her recommend stories and what makes her pass… I have been a slush reader for a while …
Continue reading “Guest Post: Advice from a Slush Pile Reader”