Anna Staniszewski

Categories: Writing Rants

• 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

• Ugh! (Or the Trials of Revision)

  I had another writing date with my friend Alisa yesterday. We’re both deep in the trenches of revision so we spent a lot of time eating cookies and whining (oh, and writing). Our biggest complaint? If you change something in one scene, that means you have to go through a hundred other scenes and change

• WIP Wednesday: Going into Attack Mode!

  Now that the semester is over, I’ve run out of excuses for why I’m not getting much writing done. I keep telling myself I’m just taking a teeny-tiny break. Well, break time is over my friends. It’s time to go into attack mode!
  There are two projects I’ll be tackling:
  1. A revision of the fairy tale

• Not Holding Back Information

  Not only is it nice to commiserate with fellow writers, but often their insights and struggles help me with my own writing. Case in point: as I was reading Brian Yanksy’s blog the other day, something in his post really stuck with me:
  One thing that my last manuscript taught me is something I had

• Poking an Old Idea with a Stick

  As I’ve talked about in the past, I have one manuscript that I’ve been working on for years now. It’s an idea that just won’t die, even though I’m not sure how to tell the story properly. A few months ago, I decided to put away the Old One with the intention of coming back

• Five Signs It’s Time to Step Away From Your WIP

  The other day I was asking you, my lovely readers, to tell me what motivates you to keep working on revisions. This got me thinking about how to know when it’s time to take a break from your WIP. Are there are any signs that it’s time to give it a rest? So here they

• Staying Motivated and Cake!

  As I might have mentioned once or twice (or a hundred times) I’ve been in the midst of revisions recently. Overall, it’s been going well, but there have been moments when I’ve started to feel a little burnt out. I’ve stepped away from the WIP as needed to give myself some time to regroup, but

• Knowing the Purpose of Every Scene

  Last week, Laura asked a great question in the comments: What is the most recent leap in understanding craft you’ve made? I had to mull this over for a while since I feel like I’m always learning more about craft. But when I thought back to all the revision I’ve been doing lately, one main

• 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