Category: fiction writing
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Friday’s Findings: Small Wins
Remember: Small, consistent wins usually lead to more success in the long run, as opposed to big, infrequent wins. Marissa Meyer, The Happy Writer I’ve been reading The Happy Writer: Get More Ideas, Write More Words, and Find More Joy from First Draft to Publication and Beyond by Marissa Meyer, and this quote really resonates…
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Friday’s Findings: Should You Add a Prologue?
Five years ago, I did a series called Writing Style Outcasts. It’s been a while since I’ve talked about one of these misfits of grammar. I’ve discovered the question is not why shouldn’t I use them but is when to use them. I’d like to add prologues to these misfits of the writing craft. A…
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The Final Destination
How I’m Designing Resolutions for Every Character in My Series This past week, as I was rewriting scenes for my upcoming novella, Normous, I realized something: I needed to make sure I kept track of where my characters end up at the end of this series. Was I smart enough to keep track of the…
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Friday’s Findings: Name-dropping
The other day, I typed out a paragraph for the science fiction novella I’m working on, and I realized I’ve had this aching question for years: when do I use a character’s name and when do I use a pronoun instead? Are there formal rules for this sort of thing? When do I use my…
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Friday’s Findings: The 555 Experiment
When I did my own NaNoWriMo last month, I realized something: writing 1,666 words a day isn’t sustainable for me. I work a full-time job, and I’m not as fortunate as someone with a flexible schedule or who doesn’t have to work full-time. For people in those situations who wish to write, I truly wish…
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Should You Bundle Your Books?
For the past few months, I had been playing with the idea of bundling the books in my Consortium series I’ve written so far. I had already bought a pre-made cover from bookcoverzone.com, so I thought ‘what the heck.’ It’s gone more smoothly than I thought possible. One thing I’ve done is put the book…
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Friday’s Findings: Beginnings and Ends for a Scene
I’ve been writing a lot of scenes lately, and I am constantly asking myself, “Am I beginning all my scenes the same way?” Am I always starting with dialogue? And what about ending a scene? How can I make sure I’m not always ending my scenes in the same way? Are some of them cliffhangers,…
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My 50k Novel in 30 Days: Final Daze
During my last three days of doing this unofficial NaNoWriMo, I wondered about my writing craft process for the future… Day 28 It is a sad day for me. The website for NaNoWriMo has vanished. Ironic it happened while I’m in the last week of one of the best 50k words in 30 days I’ve ever done.…
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What to do if you’re having trouble starting a scene
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Andrew M. Friday 