You plotted correctly and it the story is wonderful. You drew from deep within and created the perfect characters to carry your story to conclusion. You kicked everyone out of the house or went to your special hiding place to write. And you put the seat of your pants to the seat of your chair …
Tag: Florence Witkop
Style
Funny, irreverent, somber, scary, sassy, reverent, childlike. I could do on forever with adjectives describing different writing styles. Style is wonderful. It gives stories something extra and distinguishes them from the works of other writers That is, it's wonderful as long as the author remembers the huge 'don't that goes with using styl and that is... don't …
What Wouldn’t Happen?
You have an outline of some sort. Whatever works for you. And you're following it as faithfully as your characters will let you. You know where you came from and where you're going. But no journey is without side trips, problems, unexpected stops and whatever else must be dealt with because things happen. The oops …
Ignore Your First Idea
I remember one workshop I attended on how to write fiction. It was put on by two very knowledgeable women who have given many, many such workshops. The fee wasn't much but I considered myself fortunate to get a seat because there are long waiting lists to get into their workshops. I learned a few …
Not In The Mood To Write?
Common advice for writers is to put the seat of their pants on the seat of a chair and turn on their computer and start writing. This advice always gets a good laugh because everyone knows writing good fiction is a lot more complex than that. But it's good advice nevertheless. Some day when the …
Witches Bell Book One by Odette C Bell
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CR0K4CU Review of Witches Bell Book One by Odette C Bell I liked the way this book was written, the breezy, casual conversations and descriptions. I didn't like that the entire book was written in that same style. I like a bit of change now and then. But that's a personal choice, other people might …
The End Is Here
Endings are the most important part of any story. It's what the beginning hints at and the middle reaches after slogging through a lot of muck. In a way, they are the exact opposite of theme because the ending is the one thing that the writer must not wait to figure out. It must be …
Messing Up Your Characters
Once, at a writers' meeting, a fellow writer said he was quitting the group. His explanation? He'd had a happy childhood. We all understood. Some of the best writers out there grew up in unhappy homes. Not all, but a lot. Those unhappy childhoods gave them both content and incentive to write great stories. I …
The Right Theme
Theme is important. It's deeper than plot. It's what makes the story come alive. And it's very, very general. Love overcomes bigotry. Hope springs eternal. Life is good. Nothing specific. Problem is, the general nature of theme makes it illusive, amorphous and easy to lose track of even though the theme is what makes the …
Simplify
In my wip (that's work-in-progress to non-writers) I need a character to introduce Elle to the spaceship, another to figure out that she's a stow-away and still another to give her fake papers so she'll appear to be legitimate. That's three characters who aren't essential to the story and all must appear in the first …
