A common problem I see in contests or manuscripts I’m editing is that the narrative thread isn’t strong enough to pull us as readers through the story. Here are a few reasons why it fails. A series of events versus ... read more
Tighten Up for the New Year: Avoid These Common Writing Mistakes
This is not a post about cats. Well, maybe it is. A little. I don’t know about you but I’ve never seen a cat with six-pack abs. Every cat I know has a soft, flabby belly. We had a cat growing up that we called Flabby Tabby. How does that relate to writing? I’ve been judging a lot of contests, published and unpublished, for ... read more
Setting and Storyworld
Story world Story world, quite simply, is the world your story takes place in. In Star Wars, it’s a galaxy far, far way. In my book, Coming Home, it’s 1881 Oregon. It can be as complex as an invented world or as simple as the street blocks between home and school. But a different story world will create a different type of ... read more
Backstory: It’s not all bad when it’s done well.
I’m going to say something you probably haven’t heard in writing classes before. Backstory is absolutely necessary to your book. But if done badly, it can ruin your book and keep your readers from ever reading past the first few pages. What is backstory? Backstory is everything that has happened to your characters before ... read more
Creating characters? Where to begin
Every good story begins with a character your reader wants to follow. You can have the most interesting plot, but if we as readers don’t care about your character, we won’t care about what happens to her, no matter how exciting or heart wrenching. So how do you develop compelling characters? The answer to that is longer ... read more
