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. [...]
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 [...]
I guest blog about using character to inspire world-building on Alisa Libby’s blog.
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
I guest blog about the pressure to write happy endings at Beth Revis’s Writing It Out.
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 [...]
