Tweet I wrote my first novel in high school, and it was a very high school sort of book. I spent a lot of time back then priding myself on being above the stupid high school drama going on all around me…and, of course, I was completely full of it. I’ve already introduced you to […]
Tweet With all these posts lately on writing rules, I’m becoming quite the party pooper, aren’t I? That’s no fun. My goal isn’t to limit you as a writer, though — it’s to help you grow as a storyteller. Yesterday’s discussion of late attribution and flickering perspective was meant to help you spot the really […]
Tweet Yesterday I told a story about a high school ski trip that ended with a Goofy-esque pratfall on the slopes at Aspen, Colorado. It was one of those moments too perfect to believe, and I’ve cherished it in my memory ever since. A couple years ago I got to relive the experience when Dad […]
Tweet Hmm…I really need to tell the story of the time I played Little League baseball. That’s not today’s tale, but it’s one worth telling. Suffice it to say, for now, that it ended catastrophically, and that at the tender age of six or seven, the end was enough to obliterate any interest in team […]
It’s your turn! Get into the commenting action and treat us to a writing tidbit you’ve picked up recently. Tell us the tale of writing battles past, whether you fought and won or fought and learned…
Tweet As Stephen King and Edgar Allan Poe have both toiled to teach us, suspense in storytelling mostly comes from the things you don’t say. However, as I pointed out yesterday, every storyteller has a stern obligation to provide readers with everything they need to know to understand what’s going on. Walking the thin line […]
Tweet Yesterday I told the story of a math teacher who kept me in suspense, and ultimately spared me the nightmare of taking more math classes. I also talked about how little I liked math in the first place because it was just a set of soulless rules. And then I promised you another creative […]
Tweet Not too long ago, I unleashed some pretty harsh words on math. (If you don’t feel like following the link, the harsh words were “dang you.”) I didn’t excel at math in high school — not because I didn’t get it, but because I didn’t care. With the strange exception of factoring polynomials, I […]
Above all, the first draft of a story is meant to be an icky, gloopy mess. And when you’ve completed it, you do, indeed, have an honest-to-gobstoppers gen-yoo-ine story on your hands.
But. You still need to shape that amorphous blob of words into something approachable, let alone digestible, for anyone else. And that is where your toolbox comes in…
Tweet Yesterday I explained why you need to know the plot points in your work-in-progress. If you use them right, they can make your story easier to tell and for more compelling to read. Design a Plot Point Like most aspects of writing, all that power and convenience while you’re writing comes directly from the […]
