Our family subscribes to a magazine called WORLD. It leans toward a conservative viewpoint in reporting world affairs, books, music, and movies. In the Feb. 11, 2012 edition there is an article called “Be Specific.” In this article Marvin Olasky says, “Eighty percent of good writing is rewriting, but rewriting in a middle-school or high-school […]
Writing Lesson 3.25 – Your First Hundred Words
March 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment
I recently read about a contest where writers could send a portion of their work to an agent. One person would receive a request for the full manuscript. Nice offer! The rules allowed each writer to send the first 100 words of their book. Yes, you read that right. One hundred words, plus or minus […]
Writing Lesson 3.21_Remodeling Your Story Through the Editing Process
February 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment
About thirty years ago this ceiling fan was a lovely addition to this old home. It’s not exactly what I’d choose for my new kitchen, but my husband saw great potential in this find and salvaged it before they demolished the house. So what does this have to do with writing? This old fan is […]
Writing Lesson 3.16 – Backstory–The Story Behind the Story
December 9, 2011 By Leave a Comment
In a well-developed story there’s so much more than meets the eye. As an analogy, look at some of the things we found recently when we opened the walls and floors of our house! These clues gave us interesting background into the lives of people we never met. We know what they ate for breakfast, what […]
Writing Lesson 3.13-Adding Adventures
November 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment
We started the year with a post on Story Engineering. With two contributors in the midst of home renovations, it’s no wonder if our posts about plotting a story keep drawing analogies to architecture. We’ve likened genre to architectural style. We’ve said that themes and motifs provide a sense of form and function to the […]