Straight talk from the sisters about blood, sweat and ink
We recently had a guest join us to talk about creating characters with good character. If you haven’t read that post, I strongly suggest you do, since creating likable characters is always a hot topic with writers. However, it turns out I’m a contrarian. I’m crazy about unlikable characters that run from those skirting the …
Continue reading “The Back-up Antagonist”
Last month it occurred to me that a handful of basic opening scenarios crop up in a large number of stories. I’m not talking about those tropes we’ve all heard about (alarm clocks ringing, watching the sun rise, or waking up from a dream), but situations and specific types of events writers use to grab …
Continue reading “5 Common Story Openings Done Wrong”
This is our last Blogging A from Z post. The mission was a success and soon the space capsule will splash down. Crowds will cheer and confetti will litter the web. But before we blow the bolts on the hatch door and get some much-needed rest, let’s take a moment to reflect on everything we …
Continue reading “Z is for Zymurgy”
Inspired by Brooke Warner’s post 52 Things for writers to do in 2015, I’m committing my own 2015 hit list to paper. Honestly, I felt like 52 weekly goals was a bit too much for a home-schooling, work-from-home, writer mom to tackle. I’ve created something challenging enough to make me push myself, but not so …
Continue reading “10 Writer Goals for 2015”
Right about now many writers are feeling a touch disappointed. They attempted a feat of greatness in the eyes of the writing community and they didn’t measure up to the recommended level of success. To every below 50,000-words writers I say: Congratulations! If you tried your best and wrote as much as you could, stand …
Continue reading “The Post-NaNoWriMo Blues”
Ah, Black Friday. While all those around you are going shoulder to shoulder, standing in line, credit cards at the ready, or watching football, or cleaning up what was left of yesterday’s festivities, take a moment away from the maddening crowd to focus on how in the world you are going to keep that writing …
Continue reading “Where Do I Find Time To Write?”
We all have ideas rambling around about writing projects that never get written. We pick things up from time to time and file them away for future recall as something strikes us and the need to get it out is overwhelming. This happened to me yesterday as I was reading one of my writing magazines. …
Continue reading “Write What You Know? Bah.”
The technique of breaking the fourth wall generally applies to plays, TV shows and movies. It means that a character talked directly to the audience. The term originated from the idea that a theater stage is made up of three solid walls, the fourth wall is invisible. The audience looks past this last wall like …
Continue reading “Pros & Cons of Breaking the Fourth Wall”
As you may have figured out from my post last week, 6 Tips for Re-imagining a Classic Story, I’m working on a project for NaNoWriMo that involves a reinterpretation of a classic tale. In my case I’ve decided to tell it a frame story. This is a literary device using a narrative structure to tell …
Continue reading “Tips for Crafting a Frame Story”
This weekend we reviewed three books based on revisited fairy tales. You can read more about that here. In case you didn’t realize it, this is a huge trend in books, movies and TV shows. Some of the hottest projects around are adaptations from characters and stories combed from the pages of literary classics: Grimm, …
Continue reading “6 Tips for Re-imagining a Classic Story”