We don’t have to share our work in order to be a writer, through and through, but at some point in our writing journey, we’ll at least think about it. Sharing has its pitfalls, sure, but it also has many rewards, not the least of which is letting your family in on just what it is you’re doing when you set your timer and disappear for a couple of hours. Sharing should be a considered act. It’s as much of … Read More »

The start of a new year often brings with it the desire to improve our lives over the next year. Are there ways we can improve our writing lives? Always! Get Real Although we’re all writers, we are as individual as the quintessential snowflake. It seems obvious, but a glance at any writing forum often reveals writers insisting that “everyone” should read a book a week or commit to 2500 words a day or write every single day without fail … Read More »

Ah, the dreaded glitch. We’ve spent months or maybe years on a story, alternately elated and despairing that we’ll ever find the end. Or maybe we wrote right through the first draft to the end and have spent that time fleshing our baby out, adding meat and fluff scene by scene or line by line. And then we see it on the fifth read-through. The plot hole big enough to fly the starship Enterprise through. Or maybe it’s only Mini-Cooper … Read More »

We’ve all experienced a high school teacher or college professor expounding on a given story’s “theme.” Those with a sense of the bigger picture can more easily parse a novel-length story into its theme(s) than the rest of us. Occasionally debates break out regarding the central theme of a novel or whether a novel is “literary” only if there’s a clear and well-supported theme on which all elements of the story hang. I subscribe to the theory that while a … Read More »

Writers all start off as readers. The way written words transform into a story that seems visual as we read, that shows us that we aren’t alone in our thoughts, that makes us react both physically and emotionally, draws us into the writing life. But as writers, we hear conflicting advice regarding the very medium we seek to master. Read every day vs. Don’t read while you’re writing The thought process behind “read every day” is that reading as a … Read More »

Writing a story with a physical villain? Whether our hero’s adversary is an eighth-grade bully, a civilization–busting alien super villain, or a historical bad guy from our culture’s point of view, they all have one thing in common. They think they are justified in their actions. To get into our villains’ heads, we have to empathize with them. All Villains Want to be Understood Our stories benefit from outlining our hero’s backstory, whether that backstory is revealed or not. It … Read More »