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Editing, Pacing, Plotting, Point of View

Writing Lesson 3.13-Adding Adventures

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 [...]

Dialogue, Editing, Pacing

Writing Lesson 2.29 – Dialogue: To Attribute or Not to Attribute?

“That is the question,” said . . . er . . . mused Jack.

As you prepare your entries for the upcoming contest, consider the way you use dialogue.

Have you read books where every snippet of dialogue ends with “he said” or “she said”? These phrases become boring and redundant. I’ve heard that [...]

Characterization, Dialogue, Editing, Language usage, Pacing, Plotting, Showing vs. Telling, The Writing Industry, Writing in Active Voice

Writing Lesson 2.16 – Write Better-Read & Review

You may have heard it said that good writers are those who read. Chances are you already love reading. Each of us has our own tastes and preferences when it comes to reading. Some love action books, others prefer a sweet romance.  And within each book genre there are many flavors, so that one [...]

Pacing, Plotting

Writing Lesson 36 – What Happens Next?

Today’s exercise works best if you can do it with at least two other people. You’ll all read the passage below from Hilda van Stockum’s wonderful book The Winged Watchman. (http://www.amazon.com/Winged-Watchman-Living-History-Library/dp/1883937078/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265747756&sr=8-1_)

You’ll each then take a piece of paper, go off alone for 15 minutes, and write your answer to the question: What happens [...]

Pacing, Plotting

Writing Lesson 14 – Maddening Middles

A Novel is More than a Beginning and an End

Here are some novel facts:

Most average novels run between 55,000-80,000 words. A “long novel” is considered to be a novel upwards of 80,000 words and stopping at about 100,000.

No matter how you hammer them on the page, that’s a lot of words.

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