How do you decided whether to use narrative or dialogue? When I got my manuscript back from the editor, one of the problems she had with a section was that she didn’t understand who the people were. It was a total information dump. It had been an internal monologue. So, to make it more understandable,…
There comes a time in every story’s life when it’s been polished so often it’s luminescent. When that time comes, we authors need to stop. There is such a thing as too much editing. I have a feeling no matter how many times we tweak our story, we will always find something wrong with it. It’s…
I’ve said it before- I don’t like the idea of writing for the market. You should write your story the way you want to. That being said, we can still get caught up in what people might think. My novel has a few graphic scenes. I didn’t think they were that intense but my beta…
I’ve said it before, I love morally questionable characters. You know, the antihero. I enjoy writing them. How do you make these little monsters sympathetic without filing down their claws? My characters kill with no remorse. They’re prone to violence and can be more than a little heartless. They treat humans like slightly useful ants. There’s no deep reason they act…
Good thing I enjoy world Building. Developing a society is about as difficult as figuring out how Magic works. Usually, there’s more than one society and if they all function alike, it needs to be for really good reason. These sites helped me a lot:Creating Fantasy and Science Fiction Worlds: Day 6: Let Us Make Man in Our Image: Anthropology…
Writers grow up but our imagination doesn’t. It can’t really. What if we have a POV character that’s a horrible human being? The only way to portray them realistically is by diving into our imagination. Unless you really are a villain 😉 We can’t be everything but with research and a deep well of imagination, we can portray…
You’d think after writing and reading for so many years, writing a novel would get easier. It doesn’t, at least for me. I should’t have expected it to. I like to experiment with my stories- with format, with character relationships with their abilities. It’s fun but it creates entertaining problems. Back to the world building journal. The second novel in…
Ever have a story idea that just stuck with you? You write the story then, months or years later, you reread it and…it’s garbage. Instead of using it for spare parts like the others, you start over. You repeat this until you’ve rewritten the same story maybe four or five times. The characters didn’t ensnare…
Only a couple of pages to edit and I’ll be done with my first novel! Okay, technically, this is not the first novel I’ve written but, it’s my first potentially publishable novel. I’ve been working on this one for at least 7 years. Fortunately, it’s now a part of a series so I don’t have to say goodbye…
I used to make New Years Resolutions, don’t anymore. I never keep them. I have goals for the year. Hmm, is there a different? To me, goals sound more…tangible. Since I’m finished with school, I have a lot of planning to do. You know the whole- what do I do now kind of thing. Fortunately, I’ve…
