Never Have Writer’s Block Again
The best advice I’ve ever heard Ernest Hemingway give is the advice I personally swear by. He said, “The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day when you are writing a novel you will never be stuck.” […]
The Importance of Finding Your Tribe
This spring I attended a writers’ conference in Utah. When I walked into the conference center, I noticed their sign said “Welcome to the Tribe.”Now, I know what a tribe is, but the word used to be limited to aboriginal groups in far-flung eras or countries. I know it’s become a buzz-word in social media […]
The Heart of Your Story
I was asked to read a screenplay over the weekend. It opened with two minutes during which it explained what a common household device was, showing how it was made in a factory. Then for three more minutes it had characters eating breakfast talking about their cultural heritage. I began to wonder when the story […]
Write What You Know or What You Can Imagine?
Many years ago, the most common bit of writing advice doled out to aspiring authors was “write what you know”. We all became so familiar with that advice, even third-grade children considered it when choosing topics for their creative writing assignments. However, Frank Herbert certainly never visited the barren and dangerous world of Dune prior […]
Quotable Quotes
Sometimes when I read a story, I find that it’s just “bleh.” It may be easy to understand, easy to follow, but I have a hard time identifying any real virtues. For example, when you write a story, look at your dialog. Are there any quotable lines in it? If you go to IMDB.com (the […]
A Proofreader in Your Pocket
A Proofreader in Your Pocket A Guest Post by Nikolas Baron from Grammarly Do you enjoy editing and proofreading your own work? If you’re like most writers, self-editing is a slog—but it doesn’t have to be. You can use an automated proofreading tool, such as the popular program Grammarly, to supplement your self-editing process. There […]
New Struggles in Self-Publishing
I hesitate to mention problems with self-publishing. In some genres, such as romance or self-help books, the industry is doing great. But for those who are trying to sell fiction, it seems that the markets are contracting, and it appears that things will go from bad to worse. If you’ve been self-publishing for the past […]
Be Double-Minded
The Apostle James warned that “A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.” For characters, being double-minded is a good thing. A “double-minded” person has the quality of duality. That means that he is unstable, and the reader can never be quite sure what he will do under certain circumstances. Given this, the character’s […]
Be Honest
A story needs to be honest. Now, that isn’t quite the same as saying that a story must be true. Obviously when we are writing fiction, we are basically telling lies in order to enlighten and entertain. So fiction stories aren’t true. Yet in order for a story to work, there must be a good […]
Be Imaginative
Artist Zaria Forman, source: The Daily Mail I judge stories for the world’s largest fantasy and science fiction writing contest. When I’m judging, the first thing that I look for is a great idea, a great concept. I search for something original. The most common failure in a story is a failure of imagination. You […]
