Thank you to everyone who voted and weighed in on the phrase “coming of age,” which 66% loathe, 33% love, and the silent majority is silent because I didn’t give them an option. Sorry! My own personal feeling on the matter, after great reflection and meditation, is that I don’t actually have a problem with […]
Writing Advice
Character and plot are inseparable
You may have the idea that you somehow have to choose between writing a plot-oriented novel and a character-oriented novel, and that one has to come at the expense of the other. I’m here to tell you why you don’t worry about these categories. It’s a completely false choice. UPDATED 5/30/19 There’s no such thing […]
So What Makes Good Dialogue Good Anyway?
Yowsa. 532 entries so far! Please continue to enter until 5:00 PM today in the preposterously magnificent original thread. Also, if you are having trouble locating your entry, please keep in mind that Blogger has instituted a new system for long threads. At the top and bottom of the comments threads you’ll see links that […]
How do you revise?
Ah, revisions. Achilles heel of the impatient, the great equalizer of the hardworking, and nearly as important as writing itself. So how do you do it? Do you start at the beginning? Trust your critique group? Do one sweep? Throw it out and write again? Kill scenes? And if your answer is “I don’t”….. well, […]
Novel Word Count
I’m not a stickler for word count. Yes, there are certain word count expectations for certain genres, some are stricter than others, you can look these up on the Internet if you’re interested, but my modus operandi on word count is my usual refrain about writing: if it works it works. Within reason. If your […]
Your Similes Are Like a Giant Flood Washing Over Me
More common than air…. Damaging like a giant tornado hitting a chainsaw factory…. Similes are sweeping the nation as fast as a cheetah on a motorcycle. For the grammatically disinclined (you know who you are, or rather, you SHOULD know who you are), a simile is a comparison between two or more things, often using […]