Tweet Last week I told you all about classical scene structure for novels. The core of it is that the scenes driving your story should always be tightly focused on a direct conflict between two characters, and the scene should end in catastrophe for the protagonist. One More Word on Catastrophe Now…there is a great […]
There are some things about which I cannot be perfectionist. Not because I don’t want to be. But because I simply can’t. The situation is so far beyond my control, there is no possibility at all of my getting my perfectionist way about it. One of these things is my hair…
Tweet Last week Trish went to book club which meant that, for just one evening, I had to watch the kids all by myself. It was terrifying. Now don’t get me wrong, I love my kids. They’re astonishingly smart and absolutely adorable, and I have a lot of fun playing with them when I get […]
Tweet I started the week talking about writing 17,000 words in three days…and all the catastrophes that made it necessary in the first place. Then yesterday I talked about a new writing technique I’ve been studying in class that pushes a novel toward lots of conflict and catastrophe. Today I want to make the connection. […]
Tweet Okay, I’ve been mentioning my Master of Professional Writing program left and right, but I want to say up front that full credit for the information in this week’s and next week’s posts goes to Deborah Chester. She’s the professor teaching my Writing the Novel class, and a lot of these ideas come straight […]
Two days ago, I sat with Becca in Aaron’s living room and bewailed to them the fact that I hadn’t yet decided on a topic for this week’s WILAWriTWe. Two days later, dear inklings, I must admit to you: I still got nothin’. But I showed up to write, anyway…
Tweet I’m pursuing a Master of Professional Writing degree at the University of Oklahoma. This semester, I’m taking one of the program’s three keystone classes, “Writing the Novel.” It involves two lectures on writing technique every week, but the core of it is the semester project. Over the space of just four months (almost five), […]
We’re talking prologues, my dear inklings. Should we have them? Or should we cast them upon the cleansing fires of editing and rewrites, never allowing them to mar another of our manuscripts again?
Tweet This week I’m describing how Consortium Books makes books. In yesterday’s post I talked about the setup — acquisitions, editing, layout, and design. Today I want to talk about production and distribution. Publishing In the olden days, the “publishing” bit involved taking an edited manuscript, typesetting it, offsetting it, then running tens of thousands […]
Tweet I started the week with the story of the evolution of Unstressed Syllables — which was significantly driven by the birth of Consortium Books — and ended that post with the promise that I’d tell you how Consortium Books does what it does. I’m dividing that into two parts: “Making It Pretty” and “Getting […]
