The other night, over a writer’s dinner, my friend Angie mentioned a writing tidbit she’d received from a class she’d taken with James N. Frey, of How to Write a Damn Good Novel fame. (Not the James Frey of A Million Little Pieces fame.) It was this: make your reader feel the emotion, not just your […]
“Everything I learned about human nature I learned from me.” Anton Chekhov So, in November, I’m going to have surgery on my left hip. I’ve never had surgery on anything before, never been checked into a hospital (not even for birthing my babies). So this is a bit daunting for me–but I’m ready, because I’m […]
Does your writing show clearly defined arcs? In story, scene, and character? I spent last Saturday afternoon teaching about arc and it has gotten me thinking about it a lot. Whenever I teach, I do a lot of research to add onto what I already know. That research got me paying more attention to the […]
As many of you know, I’m a fan of all kinds of novel prep, including creating character dossiers to allow me to learn more about my characters. I use them to keep a record of the external stuff (really helps when you need to remember someone’s eye color mid-way through a book) and to start […]
Before I started the actual rewriting of my novel, I did a lot of prep work. One of the things I did was make a chart listing the goals, motivations (what the character wants), interior and exterior conflicts of each character. These are the kinds of things that you generally at least have a vague […]
Bon jour. I am in Pezenas, France, down near Montpelier and Beziers (where we stayed Friday night and had an experience on the free bus trying to find our hotel that still makes me laugh out loud every time I think of it). We–six of us–are staying in a house that could more accurately be called […]
I have a bad habit of creating characters that are, um, unlikeable. Or, in the parlance of the publishing industry–unrelatable. (As a brief aside, I do worry about what this says about me. People seem to like me when they meet me in person, and I do try hard to be nice and positive. But […]
I was quite taken with this post from Sandra Pawula on compassion when I read it last weekend. (I'm actually quite often taken with admiration for Sandra's posts. If you haven't discovered her blog, go read it now.) In the post, Sandra writes about how compassion is linked to boundless, deep love and then, and […]
I know, duh. Don't all writers use themselves as inspiration? (Some, such as memoir writers, obviously more than others.) What I'm talking about today is using your own thoughts, reactions, and feelings as a springboard to create characters. Here's how you do it: 1. Write a journal entry as yourself 2. Now write that same […]
No matter what you're writing, memoir, fiction or even web copy, character is everything. You've got to know your character through and through in order to write successfully. This was brought home to me all over again last week, when I spent the week with my daughter and her baby and learned, first hand, what […]
