Admit it. Plotting a novel can be a bitch. You start down the path all plucky and excited to translate your beautiful novel onto the page, and what happens? Characters fall flat. Tension fizzles out. Scenes go nowhere. And climax ideas feel, well, anticlimactic. Pretty soon the cursor on your screen has been blinking so long […]
Fiction Writing
What Writers Can Do When Writing Advice Conflicts
You’ll read writing advice that says to ignore your internal editor while you write. Well, a lot of writing advice says a lot of things. I’ve read so much of it, I should be an expert. But when my fingers hit keyboard, where does that knowledge go? I may be confident about my language skills. Nix the passive sentence. Grammar […]
3 Powerful Ways A Setting Photo Can Bring Your Story To Life (And Where To Get Setting Photos)
So I’m revising a story, and my process is a little messy. But now that I understand it better, I trust it more. So far, the writing process looks like this… Start wherever (like with a writing prompt). Write a bunch of shit that doesn’t make sense. Let the story meander anywhere it feels like. Let […]
What Writers Can Learn from Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s Xander Harris
Who was the bravest character on Buffy The Vampire Slayer? Buffy’s a good guess. She faced certain death every season. She was also the hero. Brave. Super-powered. Chosen. But her bravery was almost a given. Handed down along with her super strength and kung-fu skills. Bravery for her wasn’t unremarkable, per se. But it was […]
The Theory Behind These Two Bestselling Novels Will Inspire Your Next Plot Twist
It’s a scary thought, isn’t it? Imagine that everything you thought you knew, every thought you ever had, didn’t originate from you. What if someone or something else prescripted your thinking? That’s the idea behind Whorf’s hypothesis. And it’s had a powerful influence on linguistics and psychology. But more important for writers, it’s a gold […]