Why are so many lists of plot questions less than helpful?
Read more →When a writer starts writing a novel, he or she is essentially standing at the bottom of a mountain, looking up. That writer is facing a zillion different moving parts that have to come together to make the climb successful, and which parts are important often change
Read more →Seat-of-the-pants writers whose work quickly sets up like concrete face some unique problems with revising.
Read more →Becoming a professional fiction writer is a lot of work. A lot.
Read more →I’m baaaack! And I want to start by saying thank you to everyone for your condolences and sympathy, and for your understanding about the hiatus. I hadn’t expected it to go on so long, frankly, but I am my father’s executor and it is taking much longer
Read more →I am sorry to tell you all that I need to take a brief hiatus from posting. My father’s funeral was yesterday, and between that and the holidays, I don’t expect to have time to post until some time in January. Have a good holiday season, wherever
Read more →Back when I was still working on my first novel, I mentioned it to a bibliophile acquaintance who had been in academia for many years. She cheerfully turned to the woman next to her and said, “Did you hear that? Pat’s working on a novel! And it’s
Read more →I have a world I’ve fallen in love with but I’m afraid of putting out a story in my favorite world too early and having it not sell well because I haven’t gained some critical mass of skills or fans. I haven’t talked much about the business
Read more →A couple of weeks back, Rachel asked this: I was wondering how you work with and extend story ideas without getting bored? Because I have a habit of writing or imagining “moments” that really interest me, certain people or situations that last a page or two, but
Read more →The two problems with the Internal Editor that I mentioned last post boil down to these: The thing it has flagged as a problem is something that doesn’t have a clear right/wrong answer (unlike grammar or spelling rules, for instance). Yet the writer accepts the Internal Editor’s
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