Mark Twain is famous for this quote about writing: “Anybody can have ideas–the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph.” We often think that in longer works such as novels that we don’t necessarily have to worry about the succinctness or tightness of our writing…. Read More
Getting POV right
If there is one thing that I see writers getting wrong when I judge contests, it’s POV or point of view. This one thing can make a huge difference in your story. It is the key component in creating an emotional experience, which is the standard we measure our story by. Getting POV correct makes a huge difference in… Read More
Resolving Conflict within the Writer
by Jennifer Vander Klipp Over at Pencildancer, we’ve been following the theme of Goals, Motivation, and Conflict. GMC is writing shorthand for the needed ingredients in a book. We spent January covering goals from different aspects, and in February, we discussed motivation. Now in March, we are talking about goals. While most of the Pencildancers are writing about conflict in… Read More
