If an author is trained in the craft of fiction writing, their story will be written the voice of the protagonist–or the current POV character. Mastering POV and voice means that the author, herself, should remain invisible. But what often happens is that the writer makes minute voice mistakes based on their age. From naming…
In my writing workshop, I teach a class on creating dynamic characters. The first thing I teach about the the protagonist is that he/she has to “pet the puppy” in the first scene. Don’t giggle, it’s not obscene. It means that your hero has to do something to prove to the reader that he/she is…
Face it, unless you’re an author-of-color, you probably don’t give much thought about the ethnicity of your characters unless it’s an integral part of your plot. But like Hollywood, you have to change your thinking. James Patterson was one of the first best-selling white authors to write a black protagonist. Alex Cross is an every…
Okay, so you have three weeks before you have to turn in your novel to the publisher (or upload it, if you’re self-publishing). It’s tough to read the entire manuscript one more time, since you’ve been working on it for the last X months. Perhaps years! So here are some tricks I use on my…
No, we’re not talking about Valley Girl vernacular. Many writers get this wrong, including me, so I wanted to post it so we could all remember this simple rule. A conditional in literature and computer programming means using the word “IF.” As we’re writing prose, many times we’ll use a conditional as a metaphor, using…
You may think the digital age has created a renaissance for art. In some ways, it has. Artists can share their work with so many more people. We now have the ability to publish in so many more media and reach more fans. But it’s also a dark age for artists–real artists–those who have devoted…
I recently read a short story that began: I looked out my apartment window through the Venetian blinds down at a street full of shadows. Do you see what’s wrong with this sentence? It’s a common mistake that many rookie writers make: it’s written out of order. You don’t look out a window, through blinds,…
Here is a great video by author Kate Messner on building fictional worlds:
Everyone claims to be a Social Networking Guru. Seems like a perfect dream job, right? Sit around and play on Facebook and Twitter all day long. But most people really don’t know the intricacies of successful social networking. I was given a complimentary copy of Twitter for Writers (Scimitar Press) by Rayne Hall. As a…