It’s just not right. You think you’re done with a story. You’re proud. You’ve accomplished something. Then you go back to bask in your achievement. Only, you realize it needs something. So you tweak. Then you move a paragraph. Then you change the storyline. Next thing you know, you’re in a full re-write. I must […]
Why is it that adult writers have such a hard time letting go of details? Why do we slow down the free flow of ideas — even in a first draft — to get bogged down trying to find just that perfect word? I was so pleased watching my daughter write a story this evening. […]
I’m working on my next book now. It’s a language-focused picture book. Doesn’t sound cute, but it is. The trouble is, I’m writing two versions and can’t decide which I’m liking better. One is simple prose. The other is written in rhyme. I’m hoping that by the time I’m done, one will stand out as […]
I love writing accents. Giving a character a voice that really fits him is so satisfying — and fun. And there are many different accents. There are the national accents, the regional dialects, the local twangs, the tradesmen’s lingo. There are variances through education and age. Real people even “tweak their speak” on a whim, […]
My daughter recently approached me, a novel in hand, asking what a certain phrase meant. Had the problem involved only a single word, I’d have encouraged her to look it up in the dictionary. We would then have discussed the meaning of the word, making sure she understood it both standing alone and in the […]
Years ago, in journalism school, we students were taught to choose our verbs with great care. Verbs, we were assured, were to express action, but not nuance. For example, we were not to write, “Politician Paul claims to be working on the problem,” or “Politican Paul professes to be working on the problem.” Instead, we […]
I read a thread on a discussion board recently that got me chewing over a question. The question was, “What motivates you to write?” I was as intrigued by the answers as by the question. Two respondents admitted that ego had something to do with it (I found that to be an enlightening and honest […]
Query letters, like resumes, are some of the hardest documents to write. Not only do they require writers to condense their story and expertise onto one page; they also require writers to do something very few people feel they can do well — sell themselves. Self-exaltation, for most of us, is counterintuitive. It’s a clumsy […]
There are a lot of ways to tell a story. You can write reams and reams of text. You can condense to single lines of crisp copy. You can use slow, sweeping panoramas or quick, flashing images. You can employ breaks in scenes or breaks in audio. There are as many ways to tell a […]
Some books have characters which are so richly developed that, before the ride’s over, you feel intimately connected with them. You can picture them practically standing in front of you. You know their likes and dislikes, their mannerisms, even what they would and would not say. That has always fascinated and amazed me; that I […]