Writing tips over at JAW
Posted on October 2, 2009
Hi, folks–
I’ve got a column on the importance of setting over at JAW (Just About Write) this month. It includes some exercises to get you in the practice of observing.
And Happy Birthday to Gandhi.
Hope everyone is doing well. Cheers!
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Tips: so you’d like to submit a story to an anthology
Posted on March 23, 2009
Greetings!
As you know, I post tips here on a variety of things related to writing, whether craft or the business of publishing. Today I’ll be talking about the business end of things; specifically, submitting a short story to an anthology.
Wanna know more? Keep on readin’!
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Say what? Writing tips for (hopefully good) dialogue
Posted on March 14, 2009
All right, friends! So let’s do some more “how to write” kinds of things. Or rather (and hopefully), how to maybe write better. We’ve already discussed POV (point-of-view) and headhopping and why it might be important to stick to one POV at a time (that is, one POV per book/chapter/scene). If you missed that discussion, go here for Part 1 and here for Part 2.
The thing about the craft of writing is that different elements tend to intertwine with each other. Today, we’ll be working with dialogue, and as you’ll see, effective dialogue relies, to an extent, on consistent, focused POV. Why? Think about it. If you’re consistent with one POV, then one character per book/chapter/scene is the focal point of a scene and a reader doesn’t have to worry about getting jerked into another character’s head in that same scene. If you’re headhopping (refer to Part 2 of POV above), then you have to keep a reader from getting confused during dialogue, which means you as a writer will probably have to resort to stilted, awkward dialogue constructions like constantly using names in dialogue, even if there are, say, only two people in the room.
Want to know more? Cool. Click on!
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Confident writers vs. delusional writers
Posted on March 6, 2009
Got this link off Kelley Eskridge’s blog. She’s a fabulous writer, up for a Nebula this year, so I hope you check her stuff out. Anyway, JA Konrath has this to say about the differences between confident and delusional writers.
I tend to agree. But I also think that writers in general (like artists in other media) have to have a wild/weird/masochistic streak. Which doesn’t necessarily make them delusional. Still, writing is a strange life, and those who don’t do it or who pursue other artistic lifeways have a difficult time understanding the drive/need. For those of us who do write, Konrath might be saying something to you.
Happy weekend, all!
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wanna know more about ebookin’? plus year-end photos
Posted on December 26, 2008
as in, what an author might do when she’s out n’ about looking for an ebook publishing venue? Then here I am shamelessly pimping myself. Catch my blog at Women and Words about this topic.
And for some end of the year photo essays, just cuz it’s coming up on that end of the year thing, try these links:
MSNBC’s Year in Images/Photos (slide show w/ music and some commentary)
Remember those who didn’t make it through the year, and keep the faith for all of us left. Peace out and may the new year bring hope.
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More on Writing: POV 2, or “Headhopping”
Posted on October 8, 2008
Greetings, all. Thanks for stopping by. Okay, a couple of weeks ago I did a break-down with regard to point-of-view, or what we in the biz call “POV” and some of the different types you can use. You can check that out here.
I tend to be a little ol’ skool in some ways in that when I write POV, I stick to one person’s POV (one person’s head) at a time. The reasons for doing this are that it keeps me as a writer focused, and it allows the reader to really bond with that one character, rather than getting jerked out of someone’s head and flung into someone else’s. When you do that–jump from one person’s thoughts to another person’s thoughts and back again in the same scene (sometimes the same paragraph/sentence)–it’s called “headhopping.”
So come on down and let’s have a chat about it, yeah?
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