The most common recommendations for increasing tension in a story are things like “raise the stakes, again and again,” “make sure your readers care about the characters/conflict,” “hold back information,” and “use cliffhangers.” The basic assumption seems to be that most writers have trouble putting their characters
Read more →One of the writer complaints I hear regularly about plotting is some variation on “I can’t come up with a plot that’s compelling for the reader. I can’t make the reader care about what happens to the characters. I can’t make the reader care about what’s at
Read more →In many ways, stories are a balancing act, and the balance point for every story depends on exactly what the author is juggling and how much of whatever-it-is they have to keep in the air. A guy riding a unicycle is a balancing act, but so is
Read more →Modern technology is great. It lets me change a character’s name in an entire manuscript with the flick of a button, without having to retype the whole thing. It checks spelling. It lets me send copies of my work to my crit group without spending a fortune
Read more →For purposes of this post, I’m defining “the writing process” as “how people go about getting words on the page.” Not getting ideas, not developing them, not laying down plot or characterization, though all of those things are involved or affected by process. (Writing is a massive
Read more →Happy 2023, everybody! It’s a new year, and this is when nearly everybody (including me) takes at least a few minutes to think about what they want to get done in the coming year. “Write a book” is a perennial favorite. So I thought I’d try to
Read more →Best wishes to everyone, whether this is a great time for you, a hard time, or a what’s-all-the-fuss-about time. I am happy–they finally came and fixed my internet line this morning! (It’s been unstable for weeks and getting steadily worse, but no longer.) Next week, it’ll be
Read more →This is my last blog post for 2022. (I always take the Tuesday between Christmas and New Year’s off, so next week will be an off-schedule Open Mic, and the count to the next one will reset on the first Tuesday of the year.) I asked a
Read more →In case anyone wondered, the interior pages got finished and turned in in good time. But today’s post is going to be more ranting about the WIP. Fair warning. Multiple viewpoint stories are inherently complicated. As a reader, I often find myself interested mainly in one specific
Read more →So the interior pages for The Dark Lord’s Daughter arrived last week, and they’re due on Thursday, which means I don’t have enough brain right now to talk about anything else. First a little explanation: The interior pages are what they used to call “galleys” or “page
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