It’s easy to take writing prompts for granted. Maybe because they’re so abundant, we wonder if they can really help that much. Maybe it’s because they’re so fun, it’s hard to take them seriously. Those suffering from writer’s block especially seem to go to extremes in their approach to prompts. On one side, blocked writers… Read more »
Hey there word nerds! Today I have the pleasure of interviewing Dan Stout on the show. Dan is an author who writes about fever dreams and half-glimpsed shapes in the shadows. His prize-winning fiction draws on travels throughout Europe, Asia, and the Pacific Rim as well as an employment history spanning everything from subpoena server… Read more »
You have sealed your passion-infused romance novel with the last two celebratory words: The End. Your cast of characters are so dynamic they jumped off the page and popped the cork on a bottle of bubbly and it didn’t faze you one bit. This describes writing that screams, “Make me a Series!” I wrote about… Read more »
Forewords, introductions, prefaces, and prologues can be important pieces of your manuscript—or they can be critical to avoid. So, it’s important to understand the differences between them. Using these terms correctly will assure editors and agents that you know your stuff and help you craft great front matter your readers won’t skip through. What is… Read more »
In the case of my Antasy series, larger than life worldbuilding meant getting very small. I imagined a distant future where humans evolved to the size of insects and then intertwined with their world. But as different as this world is from our own, it’s still a recognizable place, one that can be assimilated. I… Read more »
Hey there word nerds! Today I am delighted to have Dylan Meconis on the show. Dylan is a cartoonist, writer, and illustrator. While she has pursued visual art since she could hold a crayon steady, her formal education has been concentrated in the liberal arts. She studied Western history, literature, philosophy, and French in the… Read more »
My next few articles will act as a deep dive into specific short form works. We’ll examine a piece from each short form and dive deep into its inner workings to find the path to success in our own short form pieces. Last month at the Looking Glass Rock Writers Conference, I rediscovered mystery and… Read more »
All right, writers! We’re in the home stretch. If you’ve been following along with my last nine articles studying James Scott Bell’s insightful book on plot, Super Structure, you know everything I’ve discussed leading up to this crucial—yet quick—signpost scene. If you haven’t (I encourage you do!), here’s a quick summary: we’ve just left Act… Read more »
So many times in a writer’s life (#ahem. Every. Single. Day?), we are faced with “I don’t wanna”, and no tricks to talk ourselves out of that mindset. The problem is not that we can’t write; we know we can. The problem is that fear-boredom-anxiety-busyness, resistance, or the big green monster, or whatever you want… Read more »
Hey there word nerds! Today I have the pleasure of hosting Kelsey Ramsden on the show. I have long admired Kelsey’s work as she moves the earth, literally and figuratively. She has been named Canada’s top female entrepreneur by PROFIT, not once but twice. And Forbes calls her a “master builder of ideas, businesses and… Read more »
