Writing Advice From A YA Author Powered By Chocolate And Green Tea
Happy New Year, everyone! It's time to get out of that magical land between Christmas and New Year when you're full of chocolate and cheese and don't know what day it is. 2020 brings the chance to start afresh, kick off some resolutions, and get back into the writing game. If, like me, you took …
Continue reading Getting Back On The Writing Track After The Holidays
It's that time of year again! The closing weeks of one year and the brand new potential of another, when taking stock and setting the slate clean can give your creative energy a boost. Not everyone has resolutions or likes to set them, but I find them helpful, even if they never come true. Just …
Continue reading New Year Resolutions: Setting The Right Ones For Writer Success
Sometimes the best plotting in the world and wonderfully written characters aren't enough to save a story so boring even readers who can't not finish a novel consider putting it down. That's what can happen when your book lacks suspense, and if you're afraid of this happening to you, here are some ideas that might …
There's nothing more fun as a reader than slipping wholly into the point of view of a character. It's also creatively satisfying to be a writer who can master such a skill. Writing your book from the perspectives of your characters and getting it right forms a connection for both you and the reader, so …
We all have a writing habit that no matter how much we grow as a writer, sticks with us. For many writers (myself included), stage directing is one of those habits, and it takes the form of describing every physical move a character makes, beyond what's necessary. Because this habit happens naturally, it's usually hard …
Writing a book takes time. Even if you're a fast drafter and can put something together in a matter of weeks instead of months or years, working through the multiple drafts it takes to reach the final draft is still tough. You're so exhausted at the end, that the thought of starting again at a blank …
When writing a book, plenty of effort goes into building our characters or working out our plots that sometimes the setting of your book world gets a little lost. This can happen if you're afraid of bogging the reader down in too much detail, worried you'll slow the pace by stopping to explain things, or …
You might think confusing characters only happen in movies. It's easy to get characters visually mixed up when the actors/actresses have the same good looks and do-good temperament. But it happens on the page too. And why wouldn't it? The characters come from the mind of one person, the voice of one writer, and that …
When you’re a writer who works full time and/or has tiny humans to care for, sitting down to write can be impossible. You can go days without ever getting near your computer, let alone time to scribble a note on your phone or a scrap of paper. When you hit a rut like this, it …
Continue reading Incidental Writing: How To Write When Life Keeps You From Your Keyboard
