If you're like me, you just lo-o-o-ve telling the tale before the story begins. That's because you care so much about your characters and you can envision where they were when they were three, and you know the whole cast of characters surrounding them at key moments in their … [Read more...] about Seven Ways to Wrangle Your Back Story
editing
Six Tips for Chapter One Success
How do you make sure people—readers, agents, editors—keep reading Chapter One of your Great American Novel? How do we get them to Chapter Two? After publishing three works of fiction and after writing (and discarding) several novels, I've figured out how to crack the code of … [Read more...] about Six Tips for Chapter One Success
All in a Hour’s Work
They say teachers make over 100 decisions an hour. Writers are right up there, too. Global vs. Local Choices We face the big plot questions, all those arcs and growth and struggle. There are the back stories of characters that need exploration but not to the point … [Read more...] about All in a Hour’s Work
Bless You, Beta Readers
There's no motivation like real, red-blooded beta readers to make you dive back into a manuscript and rip it up. The beginning dragged, a couple readers said. I dispensed with the first chapter and wrote another. No one uses the word "frosh," said a couple others. I hit … [Read more...] about Bless You, Beta Readers