The title of this week’s post is easily a very controversial, debatable, and in some respects downright wrong statement. After all, we have only to look at the latest copy of the New York Times to see that the fiction categories in its bestseller lists are inevitably headed by established genre writers. Very obviously, genre […]
August 16, 2009 by 36 Comments CharactersBackstory: The Importance of What Isn’t Told
When Ernest Hemingway spoke about the dignity of an iceberg being “due to only one-eighth of it being above water,” he was speaking about the importance of the part of the story that isn’t told. Those seven-eighths underwater are the ballast for the tiny bit that juts up to glisten in the sun. And, more […]
August 9, 2009 by 42 Comments CharactersYour Character’s Career: Why It May Be the Most Important Decision in Your Book
In the 1998 movie Ever After, the character Prince Henry (played by Dougray Scott) complains that “to be so defined by your position, to only be seen as what you are. You don’t know how insufferable that is!” To which Drew Barrymore’s character responds, “You might be surprised. A gypsy, for example, is rarely painted […]
August 2, 2009 by 41 Comments Writing InspirationThinking About Giving Up on Your Story: This Is the #1 Reason You Shouldn’t
There you are, staring at the computer, fighting the very nearly overwhelming urges to alternately smash your forehead against the keyboard, tear your hair out, and, eventually, weep inconsolably. The problem? You’re 30,000 words into your latest novel, and nothing is going right. The dialogue is as flat as week-old roadkill. The characters are either […]
July 26, 2009 by 30 Comments Writing LifeScrivener Too Expensive? Try the Free Writing Software yWriter (Video Tutorial)
Over the years, I’ve dabbled with various writing software and have always found them wanting. I’d pretty much given up on the hope of finding a program that would meet my needs as a writer… and then someone at the ChristianWriters forums introduced me to yWriter. yWriter was designed by author and programmer Simon Haynes, […]
July 19, 2009 by 22 Comments Prose3 Ways to Make Cliches Work in Your Writing
True story: Sometime last year, I encountered a man named Howard (name changed to protect the not-so-innocent) who had written a fantasy novel that he couldn’t seem to sell. And he just couldn’t understand it. “My work is 100-percent cliché free! I hate, loathe, and despise clichés. I’ve scoured my work and eliminated every single […]
July 12, 2009 by 43 Comments Narrative5 Ways to Use Pacing to Write a Powerful Story
Pacing is like a dam. It allows the writer to control just how fast or how slow his plot flows through the riverbed of his story. Understanding how to operate that dam–how to pace your story–is one of the most important tasks an author can learn. Without this skill, you end up writing stories that variously lack […]
July 5, 2009 by 22 Comments DescriptionDo You Have the Two Necessary Skills for Using Details to Bring Your Fiction to Life?
Most of the time when we think of great stories, we think of just that: stories. We don’t often think about the bits and pieces that make up the composite whole, the 206 different bones beneath the polished flesh, the mosaic chips that form the complete picture. But it’s these bits, bones, and chips that decide whether a story […]
July 1, 2009 by 28 Comments NewsAnnouncing Behold the Dawn and Winning Wednesdays
I’m thrilled to officially announce the publication of my second novel, Behold the Dawn. As regular followers of my blog may be aware, this novel has been a grand adventure for me over the last several years. Tackling a historical subject as mammoth as the Third Crusade, which takes place at the end of the […]
June 28, 2009 by 43 Comments CharactersCharacters: Likability Is Overrated
Writers want readers to love their characters. We want them to connect with the men and women who inhabit our stories. We want them to empathize so strongly that they are moved to laughter and to tears right along with these imaginary people we’ve created. So, naturally, we want our characters to be as likable […]
