Tag Archives: Writing Craft
You Don’t Have Time to Write, You Make it
I may make a living writing, but much to my disappointment, I just don’t do it writing fiction. I hold down a full time job, sometimes more than one, and I have a family. I have a couple of pets, … Continue reading
The Little Story that Couldn’t
I suspect every writer has a story that they really believe in, and try as they might, they can’t seem to sell it to anyone. Mine is a flash story that I wrote about eight years ago, and has had … Continue reading
Posted in Inspiration, Writing
Tagged Rejection, Short Story, Submissions, Writing Craft
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The Writing Doldrums
I write at several lengths, from flash fiction to short stories to novellas and novels. Each length presents its own challenges, but one thing that I find common to all lengths is something I call the “writing doldrums.” In almost … Continue reading
The Challenge of Putting Music into Words
One of my current works in progress is a young adult book about a group of teenagers in a band who need to use their musical prowess to stave off Armageddon. It’s sort of a Percy-Jackson-meets-King-Crimson story, where the plucky … Continue reading
Posted in Inspiration, Writing
Tagged Collaboration, Work in Progress, Writing Craft
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Rounded Characters and Compelling Arcs
The success of a story often hangs on the presence of a compelling character. When I first started writing fiction and submitting it to magazines, I was fortunate to receive feedback from editors (perhaps they recognized my newbie status) via … Continue reading
A Few Thoughts on Collaboration
Writing tends to be a solitary endeavor. Most stories and books are written by a single person during which they conceive, develop, plot, write, and edit in a near vacuum. While many writers may open their work to others for … Continue reading
Balancing Character, Plot, and Setting
Whew, it’s been a busy couple of weeks, and I see I haven’t posted anything here in a while. That’s not the end of the world or anything, but I made a commitment to keep posting here, even if it’s only … Continue reading
Creating vs. Analyzing
One of the things I like about National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, is I have to write fast to make it. Writing 50,000 words in 30 days means I need to average about 1,700 words a day, every day, … Continue reading
Characters: Easy as One, Two, Three
Characters are the staple of fiction. A story doesn’t exist without something that resembles characters (human or otherwise), and the more interesting the characters, generally the better the work. If I’m not interested in the characters, then a story seldom holds my … Continue reading
Feeling Tense? You Should Be
I’ve reviewed several stories for other writers recently, and it’s gotten me thinking about tension. I’m not a lit major and I don’t profess to know anything about the scholarly side of writing. If it wasn’t taught in English 101, … Continue reading
