It seems that every expert, agent, editor, publisher, and successful author agrees that you should never begin a novel with a prologue. I’ve personally had an agent tell me that she’ll reject a manuscript on the first word, if that word is prologue. So, yeah, there is a lot of hate out there for the […]
The Brainstorming Rat Race and Ideas that Go Nowhere
More often than I’d like to admit, there have been plenty of nights where I looked through my works in process and just said, “Eh, let’s start something new.” Sadly, especially half a decade ago when I first started writing (geesh, I’m getting old), this would end up morphing into an entire night wasted in […]
…and then I got stuck.
That’s the way that 15+ short stories I currently have in the works end. It can be frustrating, but you know how it goes: You come up with a couple of decent characters and a setting that sounds interesting and then throw them together and see what happens. Sometimes this works, but a lot of […]
Quick Tips # 4 – Dump the Info Dump
What’s an info-dump? As its name implies, it’s when a great deal of information is “dumped” on the reader. It’s usually done by the narrator at the beginning of a story or chapter. And there’s no better way to lose your reader then by boring them to death with a ton of details all at […]
Five Links Friday 1/22/16
I just found out that both Meat Loaf and Blue Oyster Cult are doing shows in Nebraska in 2016. What an awesome way to start the year 🙂 Onto 5 links… 1. Sometimes it seems like the only what to make it writing is to quit the day job. But how many of us are […]
Quick Tips # 1 : “Was” in the opening
One of the most common problems I see in my Theme of Absence submissions comes in the opening sentence. It’s the unnecessary use of past progressive tense and immediately takes the story down the path of telling instead of showing. Don’t do this: “C-3PO was running away toward the escape pod.” Instead, do this: “C-3PO […]
Five Links Friday 11/6/15
Okay, 2015 is going by WAY too fast. I feel like there is so much left to do before the end of the year. So let’s all hit the writing hard for the next two months, but don’t forget to take a moment to read this week’s 5 Links. 1. One thing I’m terrible at […]
10 Quick Writing Tips
1. The word “that” can often be left out without changing the meaning of the sentence. 2. Don’t obsess over your word count. Write every day and your word count will take care of itself. 3. Writing is easy if you don’t put too much thought into it. Just get the words down and worry […]