In considering the virtues of a perfect tale, some things come to mind that ought to be mentioned but that are rather easy to discuss. A Perfect Tale Flows Logically You don’t have to tell the reader everything in a perfect story. You can withhold information in order to create
It almost would seem to go without saying that a perfect story would be engrossing. Yet I find that rather than just enumerate the virtue, I need to explain a little about how that is done. Have you ever read a story that you just could not put down? Have
I was working on a scene yesterday that somehow felt flabby. The prose itself was fine, but I realized that the underlying action, what was happening in the scene, just felt bleh. So I had to reimagine the scene, searching for ways to make it fresh. I wanted my novel
Years ago, I had a reporter call and ask, “If you could have any job in the world, what would it be?” The only answer I had was, “I’d just keep on being a writer.” Since it was Career Day, the reporter wrote an article in which he posed that question
Last week I wrote about appealing to the senses and stated that humans have more than just the five sensory inputs that you learned in school. Any time that you use a human viewpoint character as a “camera,” you need to use all of the senses, and input the character’s
A lot of people “play” at writing. We tend to think of it as a hobby or a pastime. But I sometimes wonder how much great art is really created by those who don’t take their work seriously. I wonder how serious Mozart really was about his music, or how
I began writing this series because I talk to literally thousands of people each year who want to embark on writing a series, yet have very little understanding of how to go about it. They don’t know that there are pitfalls to avoid, and so they fall into pits. Nor do they
For today’s writing tip, I asked if I could repost a blog article by Brian Feinblum from the BookMarketingBuzzBlog. I read it Sunday, and I think Brian really nailed it. Thanks Brian. If you look at the entertainment industry, you realize how often mistakes are made in deciding which content should get
Every day on my Facebook page or in my emails, I hear authors proudly proclaim, “I’ve been approached by a literary agent!” in tremendous excitement, and my first question is “Which one?” Now, there are some great agents out there. One of my clients was approached by a superstar just
I’ve been talking about some of the attributes that I would look for in a perfect story, whether it be a novel, movie, or short story. In particular, I’ve been discussing some of the attributes that a story should have that novice writers might not think about when they begin
It seems that in the past few weeks I’ve heard from a lot of people who want to write so that they can get rich quickly, and I worry about them. I don’t begrudge people the desire to get rich. If you’re a writer and you make a decent wage
There is a saying among writers: “When you write a book, the first words of the novel will sell that novel, but the last words in the novel will sell the next.” In other words, a powerful novel will make your reputation, will cause people to remember your name, so
Most authors have no idea how to sell books, and I’m always interested in new techniques. Earlier this year, the folks at Bridge Publications re-released the classic post-apocalyptic novel Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard and were faced with a challenge: How do you push a book that is a
It has been said that there are only a few types of stories—the “boy meets girl,” “the hero journey,” etc. One of the most popular types is “the man who learned better.” It’s a story about character growth and change, and indeed some would argue that in every kind of
Earlier, I talked about one attribute that the perfect story will display—honesty. You can’t layer a tale with a thin veneer of factoids and give it the verisimilitude that it needs to be a “perfect” story. Nor can you skimp on your plotting and characterization and hope to arouse a
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