Still haven’t made your New Year’s resolutions yet? The following list is an excellent place to start, whether you’re jumpstarting your writing career, or whether you’ve been writing for years and need to scrape off some rust. If, by the end of the year, you can cross the following habits of successful authors off your […]
October 18, 2009 by 49 Comments Outlining Your NovelShould You Outline Your Book Backwards?
When you think of outlines, you generally think organization, right? The whole point of outlining, versus the seat-of-the-pants method, is to give the writer a road map, a set of guidelines, a plan. It only makes sense that an outline should be simple, streamlined, and linear. An outline should put things in order. So you’re […]
October 3, 2009 by 16 Comments Outlining Your NovelWhat If: The Two Most Powerful Words in a Writer’s Repertoire
Almost all writers are familiar with the power of the “what if” question. Every novel, story, and article is inspired by those words, even when the question isn’t articulated. Many of us, however (myself included up until a few years ago) fail to tap the question’s full potential. Why? Simply because we don’t make a conscious effort to answer it. […]
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 […]
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 introduced me to yWriter. yWriter was designed by author and programmer Simon Haynes, who saw the same […]
January 17, 2009 by 36 Comments Outlining Your NovelOutline Your Novel: The 5-Step Game Plan
Generally speaking, writers fall into two different categories: outliners and non-outliners (or, as my critique partner Linda Yezak has dubbed them, “seat-of-the-pantsters”). I’m an outliner. Mostly, I outline because I’m lazy. I hate rewriting; I hate watching my burst of pride and relief at the end of a novel dissipate in a realization of a hole-riddled […]
