Bill Dougherty isn’t afraid to roll up his sleeves and do whatever it takes to create a successful screenplay. Years of learning craft? Check. Intense study of industry standards? You bet. Dive deep into research to get every detail right? Done. He’s written fourteen novels and eleven screenplays and continues to hone his craft with each one. In this week’s RPLA Showcase, Bill Dougherty, First Place winner for Unpublished Screenplay, shares the importance of themes in screenplays and how he … Read More »

Currently, stronger synonyms for said are out of fashion. A century or more ago, writers stretched for synonyms for said: asseverated, averred, conveyed, voiced, uttered, proclaimed … and it became distracting, even ridiculous. The current enthusiasm for just plain … may be a reaction against that excess. On the other hand, the quality of the speaker’s voice can sometimes be important information for the reader, adding texture and nuance, and conveying the character’s mood or emotion. “Over my dead body,” … 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 »

Chapters of twenty to thirty pages used to be the adult fiction norm. When I started attempting to write novels, I crafted long chapters—and proud of it. Guess what. Nowadays I’m cutting those long chapters by half, thirds, and sometimes even by quarters. What changed? I think technology transformed reading habits. When I was learning to write, transitions were a big deal. Writers were advised never to change a scene, setting, or time period without preparing the reader with a … Read More »

Walter Joseph Schenck Jr. is no stranger to the struggle of writing. Yet how does someone who’s won many literary awards, been a featured writer in Publisher’s Weekly, and been on Kirkus’ coveted Recommended Read List more than once—a clear success—find writing difficult? Schenck took home three awards from the Royal Palm Literary Award banquet this year: The Dahris Clair Memorial Award for Plays, First Place Published General Catch All, and First Place Published Stage Play. He shares his thoughts … Read More »

I took this image of a carpet of autumn leaves years ago. I love it for many artistic reasons, but I thought it would be fun to apply the various components of this image to some of the aspects of the creative writing process. It’s a pleasant scattering of leaves, in different angles, layers, and directions. My creative mind thinks about a story plot that is multi-faceted, includes different characters and the stories/baggage they bring with them, and I consider … Read More »