The “Z” of Story Writing We are really wrapping things up as we conclude the XYZs of story writing – and that’s what the letter Z stands for: Zipping up the Package. You’ve finished a story. You’ve asked enough questions of your characters and plot to build it with real conflict, not fluff. You’ve created […]
The XYZs of Story Writing – Part Two of Three
December 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Continuing in our series of 3 basic aspects of story writing, we move on to “Y”… The “Y” of Story Writing When I think of the letter Y, I also think of the question why. The letter y reminds me to ask a host of questions as I write. Why? How? When? What? — or […]
The XYZs of Story Writing – Part One of Three
December 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment
While there is a never-ending learning curve to being an author, I hope to wrap several important aspects of writing in this brief 3-part series. Let’s get started: The “X” of Story Writing Wise writers have said, “Writing is actually re-writing.” So, in using the XYZs to guide us, the X stands primarily for major […]
Rough Drafting
November 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment
November is National Novel Writing Month, most often referred to as NaNoWiMo or NaNo. I’m typing my way toward 50,000 words to create part of a novel rough draft. Did you catch the last two words in that sentence? ROUGH DRAFT Much of what I’ve written will, and should, disappear during an editing phase. As […]
The Best Cowboy at the Rodeo is the Clown
November 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Every rider, roper, athlete, or stunt double will tell you: before you can do the special tricks, you have to master the basics, or you’re likely to get hurt. So here’s a VERY basic writing question: What’s a sentence? Answer you learned in 3rd grade: A sentence has a noun (specifically a subject) and a […]
