Category: fiction writing
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Friday’s Findings: Storyboarding Is for Those Who Think Visually
Storyboarding is a way to outline your novel. I love this idea! The storyboard concept is borrowed from the animation industry. It’s a way to plan out your novel or short story using panels of illustrations. Here are some tips: It doesn’t have to be complicated. You can draw stick figures if it helps. If…
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Waiting for the Right Idea When Writing
I just put placeholders into the text, and then at some point a better idea might occur to me—or it might not—and I go back. I have a big whiteboard above my desk, and if I have even half of a good idea I write it down on the whiteboard and see if I like…
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Friday’s Findings: Punctuating Inner Monologue
For a while now, I have been trying to navigate the way to format and punctuate inner dialogue. I’m always asking myself Am I doing this right? when I’m creating a scene. So, I decided to do a little deep dive into unlocking the minds of my characters. Or to be more specific, how to…
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Friday’s Findings: Keep It Simple
The best principle to keep in mind when it comes to making writing goals for the new year is this: keep it simple. I’ve broken my writing goals down in three ways: There. It’s that simple. I’ll come back here at the end of 2024 to see how I’m doing. Here are some links about…
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Write What You Need to Write
Write what you need to write, not what is currently popular or what you think will sell. P. D. James, author of Children of Men See also: Silas House and Where He Finds Inspiration – Andrew M. Friday (andrewmfriday.com) Photo by byMALENS: https://www.pexels.com/photo/art-pattern-abstract-design-2157895/
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All the Writing Blogs You Want
I’ve created a new page for this blog. It’s a list of blogs I find helpful in writing. I’ll be adding to it regularly as I find new writing blogs I like, so feel free to check back often. Go to the writing blog list page. Have a happy holiday season! Photo by Martin Mariani:…
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Some Advice for Writing a Series
As a member of The Writing Mastery Academy, I get to listen to a couple of webinars each month. These webinars feature guest authors, editors and others in the publishing field. This past weekend, I tuned into webinar with science fiction and fantasy author Scott Reintgen as guest. He spent an hour answering questions members…
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Three Things to Become a Successful Novelist
“You need three things to become a successful novelist: talent, luck and discipline. Discipline is the one element of those three things that you can control, and so that is the one that you have to focus on controlling, and you just have to hope and trust in the other two.” Michael Chabon Recent blog…
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Friday’s Findings: What I Read This Year
This has been a record breaking year for my reading. So far, I’ve read 62 books and will probably finish a couple more before the end of the year. In case you’re curious, you can peruse my list of the books I read (in the order I read them). Sorry I don’t have more critique…