Category: Point of view

  • Friday’s Findings: My 50K Novel Week 2

    Friday’s Findings: My 50K Novel Week 2

    As an alternate to NaNoWriMo, I’m doing a 50K word rough draft of a novel in 30 days. Here’s how the second week went: Day 8: My city has the best coffee shops. I’m sitting in one before I go to work and I’m going to outline some unfinished scenes. I swore I wouldn’t do…

  • Friday’s Findings: The Cat and the Snowflake

    Friday’s Findings: The Cat and the Snowflake

    In my last post, I discussed using the Snowflake Method simultaneously with the Save the Cat beats to develop a story and end up with a first draft. I expanded this idea with an Excel spreadsheet that can be downloaded. Or if you prefer, right click on the graphic below to expand it. Once the image…

  • Friday’s Findings: The Recipe for Interiority

    Friday’s Findings: The Recipe for Interiority

    There’s this new term I’ve come across in the fiction craft world: interiority. I had never heard of it until last year when I took Mary Kole’s online class called Crafting Dynamic Characters. Great class. As far as using it as a writing craft term, I don’t know who coined interiority, but Kole built her…

  • Friday’s Findings

    Friday’s Findings

    A couple weekends ago–Labor Day weekend–I decided to check off at least one item on my to-do: reorganize my walk-in closet. Now, this walk-in closet not only served as a place for my clothes, but also as my writing/graphic design studio. But the problem was this: it had become a junk room. I could barely…

  • Friday’s Findings

    Friday’s Findings

    A baseball pitcher imagines the pitch he throws-before throwing it. A gymnast mentally reviews her routine-before executing it. A tennis player sees the swing of the racket in her mind-before each game. Athletes use mental imagery to improve their performance and connect the body to the mind.  Writers should use mental imagery before they write…

  • Writing Advice Page Updated

    Writing Advice Page Updated

    Have you ever wished you knew more about writing short stories and novels? How to write realistic dialogue? How to create smooth prose? I’ve updated my writing advice page by collecting links to articles on fiction elements. Feel free to explore them to hone your writing craft through learning or reference. Topics include: Backstory Beats…

  • Friday’s Findings

    Friday’s Findings

    Writing is healing. I haven’t hugged my mom since January. This thought occurred to me earlier this week, and I burst out in tears. Yes, we’ve gotten together for walks outside, wearing masks, keeping six feet apart. We talk on the phone once or twice a week. But I haven’t hugged her lately. So this…

  • Friday’s Findings

    Friday’s Findings

    A couple weeks ago, I shared some tips on how I trick myself into writing. One of those tips was to print out your manuscript and put it in a binder. Having tangible evidence of your hard work can be motivational. But what format should you print it out in? The first link in today’s…

  • Friday’s Findings 04.06.18

    Friday’s Findings 04.06.18

    Here are some articles on writing I’ve read lately: Loved ‘Ready Player One’? Check out these 8 Books Margaret Atwood’s Ten Rules for Writing Fiction Amazon to Spend a Billion Dollars to License “The Three-Body Problem”? Using Third Person vs First Person Novel Narratives What Mystery Propels Your Novel? View my Consortium SF Series at…