Tweet I’m a picky reader. I’m not shy about it. If I start a book and it doesn’t grab me quickly, I’ll put it down. I don’t know where I get it from ; my dad feels duty bound to finish any book he picks up. Not me. Books need to prove they deserve my […]
So, when I was pondering which part of Stephen King’s On Writing to share with you today, for some reason my brain said, “FIRST! LAST! PAGING THROUGH BOOK TO FIND UNDERLINED THINGS!” And I said, “Huh?” My brain just rolled its eyes at me. But then it explained….
Tweet My name is Thomas Beard, and I know writing. See that up there? That’s my thesis statement. In the next 478 words, I’m going to develop it, flesh it out, then restate it in my conclusion. Then do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to reread it. At least three times. […]
Being sick resets one’s brain to the basics. In three brief points, lets discuss some basics of good writing. We’ll look at story structure, rules for writing, and audience analysis.
Tweet Mr. Stephen King and Mr. Peter Straub, that is. These two gentlemen co-wrote a couple books, if you didn’t know. And I’m currently enjoying the second of that couple most muchly, yup. The first, The Talisman, I read years and years ago. So, before I started this new read, I hied myself to my […]
I just finished a jolly good, pell-pell, crazed romp through November, wot wot. Somehow, I’ve emerged victorious from the jumble of letter, words, strikethroughs, wordcounts, agonized screams, cups of too-strong coffee, and zombie-induced mayhem. NaNoWriMo 2010 is over…
I’m a quitter. I’ll admit it. I’ve decided that I don’t have time to finish books I’m not enjoying. Over the last month, I have picked up and almost immediately set down again two novels in particular…
I’ve just returned home from a celebration honoring a guy you might have heard about before. His name is Aaron Pogue, and he is a published author…
Zombie stories aren’t about scary grossness — they’re about characters. The survivors and how they overcome or succumb to hardship: that is what zombie stories are about. And that, gentle readers, is what each of our stories should be about, no matter what our chosen genre…
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…
