Anna Staniszewski

Archives: February2010

• When New Ideas Strike

  For the past week, I’ve been happily working on a revision of my fairy tale retelling, making slow but steady progress. Then, the other night, I was hit with an idea for a new story, a funny, exciting one set in space. The initial idea was immediately followed by other ideas: characters, plot twists, etc.

• Music and Writing

  These days it seems common to link writing with music by creating playlists for books and giving characters favorite songs. While I’d love to be part of this trend (since I love music), for the past couple of years I’ve had a hard time listening to music and writing at the same time. The music

• February 2010

  I guest blog about using character to inspire world-building on Alisa Libby’s blog.

• Giving Your Writing Depth

  Recently, I sent my agent the fairy tale retelling I’ve been working on since November. I love the story and I’m happy with the tone of the piece, but after I sent off the manuscript, I started wondering if I’d given my story enough depth. The manuscript was a bit on the short side, and

• Can You Read While You’re Revising?

  I’ve been working on revisions for the past few weeks, and in that time my reading pile has been pretty much untouched. Even though I have a stack of books I’ve been waiting to read, I’ve been having a hard time getting past the first chapter of any of them. I’m wondering if maybe my

• WIP Wednesday

  As I mentioned in my tips for writing description, I’m a big believer of less is more. But it’s true that some stories require more description than others. If you’re writing about a world different than ours, for example, you want to paint that world for your readers so they can see it as clearly

• World-Building Through Character

  Even though today is a non-blogging day, I just wanted to pop in to let you know that my lovely author friend Alisa Libby had me do a guest post on world-building in fantasy today. After some pondering, I realized that I often think of world-building as being rooted in character. Once I had that

• Link Roundup

  I hope everyone had a lovely Valentine’s Day! Apparently in Finland it’s called “Friendship Day” which I think I like better. Anyway, in the spirit of Friendship, Love, and Presidents, here are some helpful and fun links I’ve come across in the past week.
  On writing:
  -From Alan Rinzler’s website, a look at how to work backstory

• February 2010

  I guest blog about the pressure to write happy endings at Beth Revis’s Writing It Out.

• Should Characters Be Like Us?

  In his wonderful craft book Characters and Viewpoint, Orson Scott Card says: “While we tend to like characters that are like us, we also tend to be a little bored with them. It’s strangeness, not familiarity, that excites our curiosity.” This got me thinking about the kinds of characters that appeal to me. I realized