I’ve got children’s author Melody L. Schaefer here with me today. I met Melody at my local writers group, and we’ve had a good time getting to know each other. Besides writing her books, she does all her own illustrating. Melody’s newest release, Penny the Parakeet and the Solar Eclipse, is the perfect example of…
In last week’s “To Plot a Story,” guest Deborah Lyn Stanley stated, “A one-sentence premise is essential to a strong story.” Many writers may not understand what a premise is or how to arrive at that one-sentence, so let’s take a look at it today. In almost all of the books I have on the…
Today’s guest post is from writer, artist, and editor Deborah Lyn Stanley. She is a retired project manager who now devotes her time to writing, art and care-giving mentally impaired seniors. She has published a collection of 24 artists’ interviews titled the Artists Interview Series. The series published as monthly articles for an online news…
In recent months I’ve been stymied by my work in progress (WIP). Would I call it writer’s block? No. I was struggling to write because I simply didn’t know where the story was going. You see, I decided to take a short story I wrote for a college class a few years back and develop…
Two mistakes writers make when it comes to backstory are: Putting it in chapter one Using too much at a time What is backstory? Tim Tomlinson, in The Portable MFA in Creative Writing, tells us backstory is:
Show don’t tell. Does this piece of advice kink you up in knots? Writers hear it all the time from various angles—other writers, editors, and conference workshop instructors. When I first starting writing, I struggled with it, too. Too many of the blog posts I read only talked about it and never showed any examples….
Sometimes it takes all the willpower I can muster to put my butt in the chair and write. By day I’m a freelance editor/writer and by night an editor for CrossRiver Media. I’m single and my children are grown, but I still have all the household chores to do. Work, eat, sleep. Work, eat, sleep….
My head’s abuzz with thoughts coming fast and furious. And all because of those little quizzes that pop up on Facebook. Then the next day I got an email from Bryan Hutchinson’s blog, Positive Writer, that prompted me to download and read his free ebooks Good Enough and The Writer’s Manifesto. Those things combined helped…