Anna Staniszewski

Categories: Craft

• Making a Story Your Own

  Today I wanted to talk about fairy tale retellings, especially since that’s what I’ve been focusing on in my writing recently. Right now I’m about halfway through reading Ash, a retelling of Cinderella by Malinda Lo. I’m really enjoying the story and the writing is lovely. As I’ve been reading, I’ve been thinking about the

• Starting Your Story in the Right Place

  The other day I picked up a book I’d been looking forward to reading for a while. Sadly, I couldn’t even get past the first chapter. The first few pages were almost all description of the setting and of characters we hadn’t met yet. After that, the narrative launched into an extended flashback; it felt

• A Lesson on Openings and Setting from DARK LIFE

  One of the things that makes speculative fiction so fascinating is setting. Often you want to give the reader a sense of the setting right away, but how can you do that without boring her? Well, as I was reading Dark Life by Kat Falls yesterday, I realized she does this very well. First off,

• Staying Within Your World

  I love creating other worlds in the stories I write. That’s why I’m terrible at realistic fiction; even when I set out to write realism, fantasy always creeps in. I guess I like having control over the world and its rules. But the thing about world-building is that you have to stay in the world

• Writing Link Roundup

  I was planning on doing a world-building post today, but I don’t quite have all my thoughts in order yet, so it will have to wait until Friday. In the meantime, here are some writing links you might find useful.
  -Gail Carson Levine looks at writing un-sappy romance
  -Janice Hardy examines describing emotion in first person
  -The folks

• Giving Your Story a Title

  Considering how much time I spend naming and renaming projects, it’s kind of amazing I haven’t done a post specifically on this topic before. I’m one of those people who needs a title from the beginning, even if I know I’ll wind up changing it later on. Having a title for my story helps keep

• Outlining with Index Cards

  As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t do a lot of outlining when I’m drafting. Instead, I wait until I have a full draft and then outline to spot plot holes, inconsistencies, etc. Well the fairy tale retelling I’m working on is in its fourth or fifth draft and, until now, I’ve  avoided outlining it. But

• A Bit of Advice from Rick Riordan

  There was a discussion about dialogue on the Blueboards recently: how much to use and how much is too much. Someone chimed in with this bit of advice from Rick Riordan: “Define a character through action, first. Through dialogue and description, second. Through explanation, never. The character should be primarily defined by the

• Endings Are About Trust

  So did you watch “Lost” last night? I’m still processing it, but it did make me want to talk about endings. While I was watching the incredibly long finale, I thought back to what Marla Frazee said at the SCBWI conference: “Endings should disarm us. They should be satisfying and mysterious at the same time.”
  I

• NESCBWI Conference Highlights

  On Saturday I headed up to Fitchburg, Mass. for the New England SCBWI conference. I only stayed for the day, but I left there mentally energized and inspired. The keynote speakers were Cynthia Leitich Smith, Marla Frazee, and Marla’s editor Allyn Johnston. Their speeches were all filled with brilliance. Here are some highlights:
  Cynthia Leitich Smith
  -Writing