Anna Staniszewski

Categories: Writing Rants

• Beta Readers

  I’ve had a few people ask me about beta readers – what they are, what they do, and how I found mine. Someone also asked me if beta readers are like beta fish (aka Siamese fighting fish). As far as I know, my beta readers have yet to fight each other to the death.
  So what

• WIP Update: Revision Euphoria

  The other night I sat down with a WIP I’ve been working on for over a year. I’d talked to my agent about possible changes I should consider, one of them being the pacing at the beginning. I decided to try writing a new opening scene, one I’d been thinking about for a while. An 

• Cutting Characters You Love

  At some point, all writers have to do it. There’s a character you love, one that makes you laugh or cry. But alas, your story is getting too crowded and the plot too winding. You, beloved character, must go. Cut. Snip. Goodbye.
  In the past year I’ve had to cut out three major characters from two

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• Debating the Happy Ending

  If you have a minute, stop by Beth Revis’s Writing It Out today to check out my guest post: “Are We Ruled by Happy Endings?” As much as I enjoy happy endings, I’ve been wondering about the pressure they put on writers to wrap things up in a big bow. Come on over and chime

• Examining Omniscient POV

  Last week I looked at how POV affects character, specifically in first person and third person limited narration. Today I wanted to do one last post on point of view, focusing on third person omniscient, specifically involved omniscient POV since detached omniscient is pretty rare these days. (See my post on choosing a POV for