Tag: fiction
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On Stephen King’s 11/22/63
I remember reading somewhere (probably in his memoir On Writing) that Stephen King subjects early drafts of his manuscripts to a little test: he’ll put a copy in the hands of his wife, a cherished Ideal Reader, and monitor her reactions as she reads. If there’s a passage he means to be funny, and hopes…
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Forum Friday: How Do You Outline?
Unless you are a prodigy, a diehard pantser, or some combination thereof, an outline is an absolutely essential blueprint for writing a novel. An outline allows us to chart events, organize them, rearrange, cut, add, develop characters and motivations along the way. It’s kind of a like a scale model of an elaborate mansion or…
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Good Writing Advice: A New Segment
Hey gang. So as I’ve been discovering some great resources on agent-finding, query-writing, synopses, general craft, etc., I have been keeping a file. That file is a running Word document composed exclusively of advice cut and pasted from various literary agents, authors, book doctors, etc. in interviews, agency websites, and magazines, and is presently twenty…
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Forum Friday: Learned in Reading
A writer is always learning, always improving his or her craft. And one of the first ways that we do this is through a well-rounded literary diet. We learn from what we consume! So for today’s Forum Friday, I’m asking readers and writers: What is something you have recently learned (in terms of craft, grammar,…
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Writer Quote: Roald Dahl on reader reactions
“I don’t care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book.” —Roald Dahl An interesting quote from the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The Fantastic Mr. Fox and others given last Friday’s post on unsatisfactory endings.
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Forum Friday: Unsatisfactory Endings
Has the ending of a book ever just made you wanna scream, cry, destroy sandcastles, or hoard Neapolitan ice cream sandwiches in your room and never come out again? You’ll never get those 7 hours back! Why did you think it was a good idea to read this book? How did it ever end up…
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Forum Friday: Craft & Reference Books
The more I experience of novels (reading, writing, and reading about them), the more I am struck by the brimming seas of information and resources out there on novel craft, improving writing, grammar/punctuation, character and story development, etc. etc. etc. ad every element you can possibly imagine related to writing and or publishing a work…
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Petty Man(uscript) Problems
In the last couple days I’ve been converting my latest version of a WIP to manuscript format. A simple task in theory. I mean, I already wrote the book– drafted and added to and cut and changed and edited and critiqued and revised and revised and revised (and did I say revised?) it– how hard…
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Writers: Are we all a bit mad?
I remember the ill-slept, thrilling and simultaneously stomach-turning first morning of Assistant Language Teacher orientation in Japan. It was then a lovely English girl asked the breakfast table, “Are we all a bit mad?” No one had slept well. But it wasn’t just jet lag. I can’t tell you how ridiculously torturous that first night…
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Forum Friday: Dedications
Dedications. I’ve had one in the back of my mind for a while now, but now that I actually come to it I realize it’s something I’ve not given as much thought as it probably deserves. So for today’s writing-related Forum Friday, I want to open the floor to talk about book dedications. Some starter…
Julie Israel 