I’m almost finished with Chapter 8.
I am so close to finishing this first draft, I can almost taste it!!!
I’ll keep you posted!
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Category Archives: For Fun
Start at the End (Creative Writing Exercise)
Friday, February 19, 2010
Maybe you’ve written a dozen novels already, or maybe you’re still toiling toward the end of your first one. Either way, take some pleasure in the experience of finishing a story. Hit us with a climax, tie up some imaginary loose ends, and then follow it up with the two most satisfying words in all of writing.
Satisfying Resolutions
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Last week we talked about the Conflict Resolution Cycle, and the structure of a story.
So what’s missing? The end. Every story is a contractual agreement between the writer and the reader. Your readers give up their valuable time to read your story, and in exchange they expect you to give them a story — a satisfying beginning, middle, and end. That means you’ve got to do more than make interesting characters and conflict. You’re responsible for building a valuable conclusion, too.
What I Learned about Writing this Week…from Observation
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Tweet Her mouth opens wide in a huge smile that draws every eye in the room. His nervous habit: narrating for everyone in the room what’s happening on the TV screen. When she feels melancholy, she hums “Amazing Grace” and Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters.” When she feels happy, she hums ’80s rock ballads. His right […]
Courtney’s Work-in-Progress Update
Saturday, February 13, 2010
For my Work-in-Progress Update, I decided to take the list from my last update and…um…update it. Yeah.
The Big Event (Creative Writing Exercise)
Friday, February 12, 2010
The big event. Something happens, something bold and dramatic, to derail your protagonist’s life. That’s the impetus of every story, and it’s usually a lot of fun.
I’ve been haranguing you to get to your big events early. First page, I’m always saying, and first paragraph if you can manage it. So let’s practice. This week’s writing assignment is one to three pages (300-900 words), and in that space I want you to start a story. Give us a character, give us a glimpse — the barest hint — of what his or her life is like beforehand, and then mess it all up.
Storytelling
Thursday, February 11, 2010
At some point, we’ve got to move the discussion from, “How do you make a really great sentence?” to “How do you make a really great story?” There’s lots of milestones along that path — descriptions of setting, descriptions of events, compelling dialogs, scenes, chapters, acts, it goes on and on. But before you can really make much progress on any of those intermediate things, you’ve got to understand your ultimate goal — you have to understand exactly what a story is.
What I Learned about Writing this Week…from Laundry
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
That’s right. You heard me. Laundry. Did you know laundry has lessons to teach about writing? I didn’t–until a particular inconvenience of apartment life thrust my preconceived laundry notions into tumble-dry-high. You like that apropos imagery? Yea verily, I thought so.
Blog Story (Creative Writing Exercise)
Friday, February 5, 2010
Tell a story.
Work that weird alchemy I waxed poetic about yesterday, and turn the events of your life into a true tale. Think about something that happened yesterday, or this week, and make a story out of it. Don’t just tell us what happened, craft it.
Why You Should Keep a Blog (Part 2)
Thursday, February 4, 2010
You’ve heard it before, in any writing class you’ve ever taken. You’ve heard it from Nathan Bransford and Writer’s Digest and from me. You know it, you’ve always known it, but you’ve never really been able to follow through. Still, the fact remains: if you want to get better at writing, you need to practice writing every day.
