Hello, everyone! I hope you enjoyed the trio of “Be Well, Write Well” interviews from Julie Maloney, Carol Van Den Hende, and Karen Kaufman Orloff. I learned a lot from studying their habits and schedules. Schedules and commitments are at the forefront of my mind these days, as I recently did an interview on the… Read more »
Scenes are the building blocks that comprise a longer work. For novels, a scene become a sequence, which turn into acts, which build subplots, which come together to create the global story. Stories are about change. So, something must change from the beginning to the end. Robert McKee calls this the value shift. For example, in… Read more »
Hey there word nerds! Today I am so excited to have author Stef Penney on the show! Stef is a screenwriter and author. Her debut novel, The Tenderness of Wolves,was the winner of the Costa Prize for Book of the Year and the Theakston’s Crime Novel of the Year, and was translated into thirty languages…. Read more »
If you’re writing near-future science fiction involving space travel, along the lines of Andy Weir’s The Martian, or alternate history science fiction, like Mary Robinette Kowal’s The Calculating Stars, you’re going to find your space travel limited to what we can currently achieve. When NASA, or a similar space organization, launches a rocket loaded with… Read more »
Love may very well be the most profound emotion we’ll ever experience. Whether platonic or romantic, fleeting or lifelong, love has the power to nurture meaningful relationships, shatter our hearts, teach important lessons, and change lives forever. So it’s no wonder that love is one of the most frequently delved-into themes in literature. It defies… Read more »
There’s not a lot of advice out there for mid-career writers. Once you’ve finished your first book or story, the expectation is that you now have a process that works for you and can be repeated. And yet, invariably, new problems arise. Maybe the idea for your second novel came in a different shape than… Read more »
Holy guacamole, word nerds, it has been such an incredible few weeks! The Facebook group has been hopping with all the discussion threads and comments. Personally, I’ve had a blast getting to know so many word nerds and having a window into your creative process. This book club has been so much fun, and it… Read more »
Hey there word nerds! Today I am so excited to have bestselling co-authors Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi on the show! Angela and Becca co-founded the popular Writers Helping Writers site, a hub where authors can hone their craft, as well as One Stop for Writers, an innovative online library built to help writers elevate… Read more »
Do you remember the old advice you heard from writing teachers or craft books: make all five senses—taste, touch, sound, sight, and smell—part of the scene? It may not seem like it, but this advice invites you to write about the body in such a way that your readers feel physically present in the prose…. Read more »
Organize (or´gə-nīz´): To reduce to a system;automatize. To make independent. I am Marie Kondo’s first failure. Less than six months after reading last year’s hot organizing book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, I had to forcibly stuff my flannel pj’s into their drawer today. Gulp. Books, once pine-scented and tied with ribbons at… Read more »
