Last weekend, I was at my desk. I had just started a new chapter. (I'm almost to the halfway point in my WIP, so I'm well into the dreaded muddle of the middle.) And I was throwing horrible combinations of words at the page. Really, when I say horrible, I mean horrible. Feeling a […]
Reading a manuscript yesterday, I was reminded that, while most writing teachers (myself included) insist advocate that students write in scene, there are also instances when you should not write in scene. Sometimes writers dramatize events that don't warrant a full scene. And then the writing just seems flabby. Not much is happening, but there's […]
This morning while writing Morning Pages I had a brainstorm for a new series of Saturday posts. Short and sweet, offering one writing tip. This, my friends, is the inaugural post, on scenes. Scenes dramatize writing. They bring it to life on the page. Scenes have dialogues, interiority, description and movement. I know, you know […]
I'm working on the final (ha!) rewrite of my novel, coming up on part two. I did a lot of thinking and making notes before I started this rewrite, which included many Great Ideas, and most of that affected part one. Why? Because it was character stuff. I worked on figuring out how characters reacted […]
Twitter is, of course, the social networking rage. Seems like everyone from corporations to small businesses to solopreneurs to politicians are tweeting. And with good reason, I some people find it addictive. There are posts galore on how to best use Twitter to promote yourself or your business, how to not waste time on Twitter, […]
This is the third post in a series on scenes, and specifically, flat scenes. You can find part one of the series here, and part two, here. What is a flat scene? It is one in which the emotional tenor is the same all the way through. For instance your heroine may start out the […]
