Tweet It’s been nearly three months since I told you that you should start a blog to become a better writer. My attitude hasn’t changed a whit, but my advice has. You see, when I was…let’s say twelve, I decided I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. I liked writing well enough, […]
Alan Alda said, “Laugh at yourself, but don’t ever aim your doubt at yourself.” Humor is a writer’s best friend. We need to laugh, because the action of laughing pulls the lid off that well of creativity, giving us access to our most important and abundant resource. Yes, we need to take our craft seriously…but we need to learn not to take ourselves too seriously…
This Creative Writing Exercise calls you to christen a scribblebook: Fill a full page with gibberish, and free yourself from the need for perfect first drafts.
There are incredible benefits to writing a novel by hand, including easier and better first drafts, and a more powerful reader experience. Get a scribblebook.
The adventure is the effect; your readers want to know the cause. They will find that cause not within the events of the story, but within the characters themselves.
Why does Alice follow that rabbit in the first place? Why does Oliver have the gumption to ask for more? Why does Edmond keep scraping away at that wall…?
Behold! The game is afoot, and The Second Draft loometh ahead, apparently precipitous but in reality more easily ascendable than its predecessor. In this, my most excellent beta reader = Mom = my climbing buddy, having scouted ahead and come back to me with a report of the obstacles and pitfalls I shall face. And so, knowing that forewarned is forearmed…
This Creative Writing Exercise calls for market research: Choose the target audience for a work-in-progress and evaluate the document against its expectations.
Once you’ve got good feedback, you still have to figure out what to do with it. Luckily, those who have gone before have provided an answer. What you need, they teach us, is a tool to convert wrong words into right words, a working model that you can test your story against. It’s super useful, and it’s got a name: The Ideal Reader.
In Heroes, Claire is changing as a result of growing up. That change is necessary and good. So why am I perturbed over her relationship with her roommate?
Your writing exercise this week is to write the pitch and tagline for your story. That should be the most interesting, energy-packed version of your story description. Tell us, briefly, what your story is about. What makes your story special? What about it is going to grab our interest? You’ve got two to four paragraphs (fewer than 200 words), so keep it focused.
