Writing Category
Putting Fire in Your Fiction–Part V
Posted on June 24, 2015 Leave a Comment
The last few weeks, we’ve been looking in-depth about how to insert tension into every scene, because without it, the scene falls flat. We’ve looked at tension in dialogue, in exposition, action, hyping up low-tension scenes, and today, we’ll look at creating tension where there is none.
Putting Fire in Your Fiction–Part IV
Posted on June 17, 2015 Leave a Comment
Last time, we talked about tension. Tension is the most necessary ingredient in any fiction you write. Click to tweet. Using Donald Maass’ The Fire in Fiction as a resource, we covered Tension in Dialogue, Tension in Action, and Tension in Exposition. Today, we’ll look at sprucing up low-tension scenes and avoiding the traps.
Writing Resource–Plot & Structure Part III Character Arc
Posted on June 3, 2015 Leave a Comment
“Great plots have great characters. While this is not a book on character creation and implementation, we can’t let the subject of plot go without touching on at least one aspect of character work that is all important: character change.
Here We Go Again–Another Rejection
Posted on June 2, 2015 4 Comments
Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. Nine rejections in a year. Maybe that’s not a lot for most writers, but for someone healing from rejection issues like me, it’s like having a hundred. I’ve read posts by other writers who say they have so many rejections they could paper a wall with […]
Putting Fire in Your Fiction–Part II
Posted on May 27, 2015 Leave a Comment
Since I’m always on a quest to learn more and share it with you, I’ll share a bit from Chapter 1, Protagonists vs. Heroes. My focus will be something that challenged me when I wrote “Meghan’s Choice.” My first incarnation of Meghan Gallagher was that she was a spoiled brat who felt entitled. I know, […]
Writing Resource–Plot & Structure–Part II
Posted on May 20, 2015 2 Comments
Chapter 5–Middles We’ve all heard about “the middle” of a story and usually what we hear is that it sags, stalls, and slumps. It doesn’t seem to move the story along or go anywhere. James Scott Bell addresses this in chapter five of Plot & Structure. The middle is typically known as Act II. In […]
Research–Imperative for Writers
Posted on May 6, 2015 Leave a Comment
Whether writing fiction or non-fiction, research is the most important thing we do. Movies and television seem to be able to “get away with” not being accurate or getting their facts straight. And maybe in the past, writers could as well. Not anymore. But the thing about fiction is that you can away with fudging […]
Storytelling – What Makes a Story Great?
Posted on April 29, 2015 2 Comments
What is it about a story that makes it compelling? Is it the characters? Is it the plot? Is it the element of surprise? Is it the challenges? Is it danger? I submit, it’s all of them, skillfully put together, woven like a tapestry to make an impression on our minds and in our hearts.
Putting Fire in Your Fiction
Posted on April 22, 2015 Leave a Comment
The tagline to Donald Maas’ The Fire in Fiction is “passion, purpose, and techniques TO MAKE YOUR NOVEL GREAT.” The book covers everything from characterization, the story world, scenes, dialogue, and voice. Each chapter has a set of practical tools dealing with each section from that chapter. As an example, I’ll talk about Chapter Three, […]
Writing–The Mystery of Characters Part I
Posted on April 15, 2015 Leave a Comment
What is a character? An imaginary person we writers think up. How did I create Meghan Gallagher? She started out as a nineteen-year-old very unlikeable spoiled brat, which is what I wanted her to be, but soon learned no one wants to read about a spoiled brat, even though she was going to change drastically. […]
Donna L.H. Smith 