Multi-Tasking Characters or Impossible Actions?
Are your characters handy, so handy that they can multi-task without mussing a hair, accomplish two or three actions in the course of a few seconds? Maybe you’re writing about a vampire or a super man...
View ArticleWhy I Would Decline an Edit
Why would an editor turn down an editing project? Isn’t it money, a job? A new client that the editor could work with for many years? Yes to each of those. Yet my sole purpose as an editor isn’t to...
View ArticleWhat To Write First When Writing Fiction
This is not a discussion of where a story should start but where a writer should start. Start writing, that is. Are you just beginning a novel or short story and have no idea what you should do first?...
View ArticleStep Outside Your Story World
To look at your stories with an impartial eye, you’ve got to be able to step outside your story worlds. While we’re writing, we tend to live in our fiction. We know the setting—we can hear, taste, and...
View ArticleGreat Expectations vs. Realistic Ones
In the early days of this blog, I wrote an article about the quality of a writer’s first manuscript—The First Book is Seldom the Best. I’d like to revisit some of the points I talked about then, maybe...
View ArticleThe Curse of First-Person Narration
Did you know that stories with first-person narration face a curse? It’s not that every story told in the first person falls under the curse, but a great many manuscripts, especially those of...
View ArticlePurposes for Connecting Words into Story
Word choice makes stories unique. A dozen stories about a boy running off to war, each with perfect grammar and punctuation, will sound and feel different. Not only because of plot events and...
View ArticleEverybody Does It—Common Writing Mistakes
I won’t presume to say I know the 10 or 25 most common fiction writing mistakes of all writers of all time, but I will give you a list of those mistakes that I see again and again. I’ve covered this...
View ArticleNo More Excuses—Write That Novel
This feels like the time to get on some people’s cases. On some writers’ cases. Have you done it yet? Have you finished your first novel? Have you even started it? You said you were going to do it....
View ArticleSampling, Borrowing, Homage, and Plagiarism (Writing Essentials)
This article is part of Writing Essentials, in-depth coverage of the elements of fiction and writing basics. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I once assumed that everyone who made it through junior high (middle school)...
View ArticleDon’t Fake It—Learn the Craft
I’ve mentioned in other articles that you don’t have to know everything about writing and fiction and novels in order to begin your first novel. And that’s true whether you’re writing or editing. But...
View ArticleYou Gotta Start Somewhere
Many readers at The Editor’s Blog are writers who’ve been writing a while, who have no problem whatsoever with generating story ideas or starting their next novels. They may have questions about the...
View ArticleGet and Keep the Words Flowing
I’ve been working on a couple of articles that deal with the nuts and bolts of sentences and grammar, topics such as the parts of speech and punctuation of compound nouns, but I just can’t keep on...
View ArticleAnother Year—Encouragement and a Reminder of Goals
At the turn of a new calendar year, we typically make plans for the new year, at least for the next months. We may also look back at the year that has passed to see if the plans we made twelve months...
View ArticleNouns—The Parts of Speech (1)—Writing Essentials
We call them the parts of speech, but they’re used in writing as well. And they are one way we’ve been categorizing words for more than two thousand years. Words can be classified in other ways as...
View Article(Stop) Comparing Yourself to Successful Authors
A reader recently left a comment expressing doubt about whether his writing could/would measure up to books already out there, especially good books. Maybe memorable books. Books that resonate or that...
View ArticleRight Place, Right Time Syndrome
The discussion on a recent article about learning from movies and TV reminded me about another issue that can challenge a reader’s belief in fictional events and characters. I’ve written about...
View ArticleConsistency Can Trump Problems
While there are rules for the fiction elements as well as rules for punctuation and grammar, most writers eventually discover that they don’t have to be slaves to the rules in order to create...
View ArticleWhy Doesn’t My Story Read Like a Published Novel–A Reader’s Question
A reader recently asked about a book she was co-writing with a friend— We cannot seem to make it sound like a real published novel. It might just be because it is on the screen. Will it help if it is...
View ArticleWriting Novels vs. Telling Tales
The prompt for this article came from several sources that recently had me thinking about the differences between tales and novels. In a book I was reading, a character was telling a story to others,...
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