What Type of Story Gardener Are You?
How often have you answered the question, “Are you a pantser or a plotter?” with “I’m a bit of both” or “I’m somewhere in the middle”, or something along that line? In this video, at around the 50:30 mark, you can listen to Carrie Vaughn and Song of Ice and Fire (better known as Game […]
How Horror Handicaps Your Writing – Don’t Do This (New Article Series)
I’m starting a new series of writing-craft articles called “Don’t Do This”, taking an in-depth look at some of the more dubious choices made by published authors and TV/film writers/directors/editors, and the reasons you don’t want to copy them without knowing exactly what these elements will cost your story. I want to do this without […]
Show Me Who You Are
***The following contains spoilers for the Australian television movie Little Oberon.*** Here is an example from a movie (Little Oberon) of showing the audience key elements of the story instead of telling them. (“Show, don’t tell. Show, don’t tell”: something my writing teachers always drummed into my head.) It’s much easier to show in a […]
Standing Alone
Since I made the decision to turn my trilogy into a stand alone novel I’ve been trying to choose between the options of interweaving the three related stories or running them separately as Parts 1, 2, and 3. My heart likes the former. It will make for a fuller, rounder story, and it will take […]
Lessons in Showing
I’ve been stuck on editing an important scene on the first page of my completed children’s book, and eventually I decided to get some opinions from other writers (thanks Wendy, Lauri, and Sher). Showing a scene allows the reader to own it, and therefore makes it more powerful and memorable. So it stands to reason […]