I’ve been saying for a long time that there are only two rules for writing: 1) You must write, and 2) What you write has to work. And I keep running into writers at opposite ends of the spectrum who really, really, reeeeeeaaaally don’t like that. The
Read more →Endings are a problem for a lot of writers on a lot of levels. People have trouble making them convincing, trouble making them dramatic, trouble keeping them from dragging out or being too abrupt. One of the problems that seems surprisingly common is picking out the ending
Read more →Some years back, I read a book on the history of the penal system – one of those random research things that pays off in unexpected ways. In this case, what struck me was the author’s summary of the history and theory behind law and punishment. A
Read more →So LizV wants to know how to find critiquers in the first place, rightly noting that the last post I did has more to do with how you deal with them once you have them lined up. The short answer is, you ask people. The longer answer…
Read more →That last post of comments segues nicely into this one, which is about critiquing and being critiqued. Good critique is hard to find. There are several reasons for this, starting with the fact that “good critique” means different things to different people. Some folks want the proverbial
Read more →Alright, last week I promised Wolf that I’d do some comments on the bit he used as an example. For those who didn’t see it or don’t want to go back and hunt it up, here it is: “I’ve often wondered—why did your people send only
Read more →One of the conclusions that folks could have, and perhaps should have, drawn from my last post on omniscient viewpoint is that it is easy for editors and critiquers to mistake it for something else. When this happens, you are likely to get “you have viewpoint problems”
Read more →First a housekeeping announcement: I am going to be off on vacation for the next couple of weeks. I’ve left some posts for my webmaster, but I won’t be viewing comments and moderating new people will likely be even slower than normal. It also means that the
Read more →“Point of view problems” are one of those things that a lot of editors and beta readers cite, expecting the writer to know what the phrase means. If you take it apart, though, it assumes a fair bit of theoretical knowledge, as well as the practical skill
Read more →We’re coming down to the end of 2013. A lot of folks use the week between Christmas and New Years to “clean house” – that is, they take stock of where they are, clear up outstanding projects, and generally get ready to start the new year on
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