Anna Staniszewski

Archives: March2010

• March 2010

  I ask readers to speculate on what became of their favorite fantasy heroes after their adventures were over at The Enchanted Inkpot.

• Characters Don’t Have to Be Nice

  I just finished reading Before I Fall last night and this morning it’s still swirling around in my head. It’s about a girl named Sam who has to relive the day she died over and over until she gets things right (kind of like Groundhog Day but a little more morbid). There were so many

• Confessions of a Book Hoarder

  As I mentioned in a previous post, I have a hard time reading while I’m revising. But now that my revisions are finally in good shape, it’s been a relief to be able to read again. Good timing, too, since my reading pile is about to tip over. You see, I think I might have

• When Should You Stop Revising?

  Revision has been on my mind a lot recently; not only have I been doing a lot of it in past weeks, I’ve also been talking about it in my classes. The longer I write, the more revision approaches I find that work for me. But I’m always looking for new methods that might help

• WIP Wednesday: Answers on the Tip of Your Nose

  I’ve been busily working on revising one of my WIPs, trying to make the main character more active. Overall I feel I’ve been achieving this, but there was a part at the end of the story, the climax in fact, that didn’t seem to be working. The protagonist has a skill that he uses throughout

• Don’t Let Readers Hang Up on Your Story

  Over the weekend a friend of mine was telling me how little patience she has for long voicemail messages. “Make sure you say the important stuff at the beginning,” she told me, “because after a few seconds I delete the message without listening to the whole thing.” When I thought about it afterwards, I realized

• People Read to Worry

  I’m back to share some more wisdom from James Scott Bell’s fantastical little book, The Art of War for Writers. While Bell gives several helpful exercises to develop your writing, he also shares insight into the art of storytelling in general. Last night I read this gem:
  They [people] read to worry. They read because they

• The Company of Writers

  First off, agent Mary Kole just started an interesting series on her blog where she’s critiquing submission excerpts line-by-line. It’s a great glimpse into how agents evaluate manuscripts.

  Now, I think I’ve mentioned before how lonely writing can be. Luckily, I have a writing date scheduled with my friend Alisa Libby today. Then we’re going to

• Learning to Give Feedback

  Last week I had the opportunity to visit a sixth grade English class and do a lesson on revision. It was a lot of fun. The students admitted that revision is NOT their favorite thing, but they were still willing to give me a chance. We not only talked about why revision is important, we

• Fun Link Friday

  Despite the fact that I’ve been on spring break, this week has been even busier than usual. I blame those neverending revisions! (Oops, do you think my WIP heard me?) So while I had a fun little topic I was going to post on today, I’ve decided to leave that for Monday. Instead, here are