Today I’d like to welcome Caroline Starr Rose back to DIY MFA. Caroline and I met through the blogsphere in 2010, when she hosted a Verse Novel Challenge on her blog. Being a fan of verse novels, I joined the challenge and have had the pleasure of following her writing and publishing journey ever since. … Read more »
Today, to kick off the Master Class blog series on Poetry and Verse Novels, we have an fabulous guest post by Leslie Bulion. I first discovered Leslie’s work at BEA (BookExpo America) last year, where I came across a copy of her book At the Sea Floor Cafe. From the minute I picked up the… Read more »
This week, we’re talking about description and detail. On Monday we established that Description Equals Does Not Equal Exposition. Today we’re going to discuss how to make those descriptive passages more powerful. Here are five tips, plus a writing exercise at the end to help you put them into action. 1) Engage the Five Senses…. Read more »
Dialogue is easy to spot because it has those nifty little quotation marks, but not all text that isn’t dialogue can be lumped together. The difference between description and exposition can be tricky to determine but it is most definitely there. The key is to remember this equation: How can we distinguish between description and… Read more »
Starting a novel or short story is like making a promise to the reader. You set up rules and expectations that your readers will rely on as they read your piece. You take your readers by the hand and guide them into your story. You develop a trust-relationship with the reader. Delaying or changing these… Read more »
The trouble with voice is that it’s nearly impossible to find an adequate definition. The best I can say about voice is that while I might not be able to define it, I definitely know it when I see it. Before putting together this post, I did a little research on voice by looking… Read more »
Last week we talked about Point of View and one reader raised a fascinating point in the comments about the narrative distance between first and third person. As I thought about this point, I realized that verb tense also affects the narrative distance, hence this post about verb tense and how that affects the viewpoint… Read more »
The ABCs of plot is a technique I learned from one of my mentors and it’s very powerful for helping writers map out the plot of their stories. I’ve since borrowed parts of the method, added some of my own flare and have used it in many of the workshops I teach. You can use… Read more »
There are lots of different opinions out there about plot archetypes and how you can represent just about any story with one of a few labels. For instance, John Gardner once said that there are only two plots in all of literature: “you go on a journey”, or “a stranger comes to town.” While most… Read more »
Last week we started talking about creativity and ways to boost that part of your brain. This week, we’ll continue that conversation, focusing especially on ways to get over that writing hump. You know what I’m talking about. One minute you’re zipping along down the fast lane and then WHAM! You hit a speed bump… Read more »
