(Part Two ) Opening Hooks and Setting Scenes that Don’t Get Weighted Down In Part One of CRAFTING BETTER BEGINNINGS, I gave examples of using too much back story, of actually polluting our story openings with information dumps. Today we’ll talk about opening hooks and setting scene. One of the big problems with poor beginnings […]
Crafting Better Beginnings
September 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment
(Part One) Examples on Stowing Away the Back Story and Cleaning Up Information Dumps Which opening is better? This one? There once was a prince named Erasté in a faraway land called Trevelyan. His father, King Elián Ruelle, was a kind a gracious ruler, loved by all — all but one. Faeries dwelt in the […]
Writing Lesson 3.30 – THAT Doesn’t Matter
April 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment
When it comes to prose, some things matter. THAT often doesn’t. For the past couple months I’ve been working on story rewrites. Thanks to a terrific editor, my novel The Black Rose should be all cleaned up and ready for release from Desert Breeze Publishing in July. It’s amazing no matter how many times I […]
Writing Lesson 3.28_A Writer’s Biggest Job
March 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment
A few days ago someone on Facebook said, “Write to be pleasing, but never to please.” I could sort of go with that in the sense that we shouldn’t form our words only to give people what they want to hear. But how does one write to be pleasing? I’ve also heard two other seemingly […]
Writing Lesson 3.27_Am I a Writer?
March 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Ever wonder when you’ve really become a writer? If you’re a young person still in school, you might be saying to people, “I want to become a writer when I grow up.” If you’re a little bit older and you’re working your way toward publication, you might tell them, “I like to write, and I […]