Category: Writing Tips

Let’s start by thinking about dialogue. You’ve done your homework, you’ve outlined. You have a pretty solid idea of where you’re going with it. But suddenly you come to a necessary scene that stumps you. Though you may know what it’s supposed to accomplish in terms of an A-to-B goal, you cannot quite visualize howyou’re going …
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BEGINNINGS: Kicking It Off—That Super-Critical Opening Moment Where and how to start one’s yarn, including choosing the just right opening words for a novel, play or short story, selecting that optimum moment for the beginning of a screenplay or teleplay, and the crucially important first meeting between your fictional creation and your audience is — once …
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It’s no secret that kids love to laugh.  (Adults, too.)  And as a consequence, funny stories always rank high on editors’ “must have” lists. If you possess a knack for writing humor, you’re well on your way to winning editors’ (and readers’) hearts.

But say you’re not the world’s greatest joke writer — in fact, you think …
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The writing life is rife with opportunities for disappointment. Our human condition can’t avoid it. We construct hopes for ourselves and our work, knowing there are plenty of rocks and boulders ahead in the rushing waters of the marketplace.

This is not just in our professional lives, of course. It’s there in every other aspect of …
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Never say anything bad about a man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes. By then, he’s a mile away, you’ve got his shoes, and you can say whatever you want.

Like a joke (even that one), a story doesn’t work properly without set-ups. What are set-ups? Just the crucial planting of key information in …
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Okay, so you’ve completed a full draft of a picture book manuscript. Now what? Revisions, of course! As we all know, it’s unusual that a first draft (or even a tenth or eleventh) be ready right off the bat for submission. Writers should embrace the revision process. And while I’m no author, I do get …
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1. You aren’t making it disappear forever

Create a “cut file” for everything you remove from your work-in-progress, knowing you can use it in a) another book b) a short story c) the same book, should it prove relevant later on.

2. Serve that plot/kill those darlings

Remember, we’re all storytellers, thus the Continue reading →

As an onomast and an author, I’m very sensitive to names in fiction. Yes, your characters are metaphorically your “babies,” however you shouldn’t name them as you would a child. Here are five mistakes that writers make regarding names in fiction:
1. The name …
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Here are three things that glib, hasty or form declines from New York editors and agents aren’t telling you. The solutions can help you whether you are seeking a major imprint or going it alone:
1. PROBLEM: I was able to begin skimming your novel almost right away.
Ouch. That’s …
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