This week I’m going back into the archives for a refresher on voice. Editors and agents often say that they sign an author because of the excellent/compelling “voice” of the work in question. What does this mean, and how do you accomplish it? First, Some Definitions… Tone: the “atmosphere” of a narrative, generated by using… Read more »
Writing Craft Tips
For Writers: On Voice and Tone
Your Character’s Desire & Goal
Whatever you are writing – for kids or adults, picture book or young adult or older – your protagonist must have two story arcs: internal, and external. And each of those arcs has a destination. Just to keep it simple, we’ll call the internal destination your character’s desire, and the external destination their goal. In… Read more »
The Antagonist Never Changes
I’m a fan of Steven Pressfield. He’s a screenwriter who also shares his substantial knowledge of craft, and I’ve been following him for a long time. A while back he wrote this post about the villain (antagonist). At the time I wanted to argue with him in the same way he argued with his former… Read more »
Picture Book Basics
Back in the day I believed that picture books were THE books for kids. I had good reason to feel this way as BHP (Before Harry Potter) there was no real “middle grade” category, and YA was still in the semi-adult realm, with books like The Red Badge of Courage. So, like many of you,… Read more »
Turn, Turn, Turn: Plot Turning Points
A couple of weeks ago I addressed plot, and how the Save The Cat template is useful for sketching out the bones of a story. But there’s more to this idea of creating a skeleton, for stories (with the exception of metafiction) share a common structure. This structure is based upon the concept of turning… Read more »
A Tool You Can Use
What’s your process for writing a novel? That’s a question I get all the time. And the answer is…every time is different. I’ve written novels completely on the fly, I’ve written them using templates, I’ve written them through 35 revisions and through 5. Years ago when it was first invented I discovered Scrivener, and because… Read more »
Show It! (Show, Don’t Tell, Explained)
“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” Anton Chekhov What do we mean when we say, “show, don’t tell”? Lately I’ve had to help writers with this concept, so I thought I’d share here. I’ll attempt to give you some clear pointers, definitions, and concrete examples…. Read more »
Character Motivation
I recently participated in a high-level writing workshop and something jumped out at me: I felt that many of the writers were not entirely clear on their character’s motivation. Let’s discuss. (Note: a lot of these ideas are inspired by GMC: Goal, Motivation, Conflict, by Debra Dixon, a craft book I highly recommend.) What Do… Read more »
Why Are You Waiting?
If you have only one book under your belt and you haven’t sold it, should you keep going? Yes. I’ve met far too many writers who write the same book over and over and over and over…revising again and again…in the hopes that this book they’ve been working on, sometimes for years, is “the” one…. Read more »
Writing Craft Tips: Plot
This week I thought I’d give you a few links to older content regarding plot that still may be helpful for whatever you’re struggling with. Next week, I’ll link to the tons of content on building characters. Plot One of my most popular craft links is to this plot paradigm. It’s available for you to… Read more »