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Last week, I added a parenthetical remark to my list of things a heroine should do. That aside sparked the idea for this post. I’m limiting myself to ten randomly chosen ideas (broken into two weeks–my words go on and on!), but there are probably a million more. Please add yours in the comments.Read More →

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When he screws up (and I don’t mean by being unfaithful), when his back is against the wall, when whole worlds wait in the balance–she doesn’t wait at home and hope he can put everything right again. She’ll be right by his side, standing up for him or wielding a gun and shooting it out with the bad guys. It’s not about him needing her help–though he does, we all need help when we reach our biggest crisis–it’s that she wouldn’t dream of letting him face it alone.Read More →

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He sees things in her that others don’t. Maybe that she doesn’t even see in herself. Take my super independent chick from above. Everyone else thinks she cold-hearted, calculating even (because, hey, that’s what our society thinks of women like that–but that’s another post). But he sees that she has a soft side. Maybe he recognizes it in the way she take time to comfort a person because she can relate to them. Maybe, instead of kicking someone when they’re down and climbing on top of their unconscious body to plant a conquering flag in their backside, she offers to help.Read More →

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Then 09.17.2008 Structural Integrity, Baby When I start a story, I figure out pretty quick what that first turning point is going to be and where the plot (and subplots) will have to get to for it to happen. I’m a pantsy plotter. That also sets me down the road of “What happens next?” Well, the whole world just turned on it’s side–for good or bad, or both–and people (characters) are going to be scrambling to figure out how this new world works, where they fit in it, and how the heck they get to their goal now. Don’t think of it as outlining, whichRead More →

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Burn Notice. Love, love, love the characters. I’d watch Bruce Campbell clean out his gutters. And the story arcs like mad. Everything changes. I hate when writers are afraid to make changes because what they have works. In this moment.

But it can’t work forever. The nature of story is to change. Otherwise, it’s just a snapshot in time.

I can’t turn off the writer.Read More →

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I found my critique partner through a website (Ladies Who Critique) about eight months ago. We exchanged a chapter to see if we would be a fit. We decided to chat on Google a week later and about five minutes in she said, “Can I just call you? I hate chatting.” Feeling slightly awkward about my West Virginia accent, I reluctantly agreed. (She doesn’t know I was reluctant. I’m shy. Shh, that’s a secret). That night, we went over our crits, answered questions, brainstormed. Then we spent three hours talking about writing, and story, and good books. And life. It was like we were meantRead More →

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Glee. Just…Glee. I’ve posted in the past about watching great shows to improve your writing (and because they’re awesome and we love good stories). I’ve been a fairly long-standing fan of Ryan Murphy (and later Brad Falchuk). The Shield, Nip/Tuck, American Horror Story. Good shows. Great characters. But, Glee. I’ve watched it on Netflix and my becoming enamored with it started one boring, cold Saturday morning. I turned it on. I gasped. I laughed. I called to my teenage daughter to get in there because I was watching the best television show I’d ever seen and she had to see it. I’ve fallen in loveRead More →

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I wrote a short Christmas story and it’s being hosted over @ Passionate Critters as part of their 12 Days of Christmas. Please go read and give me some comment luv! Update 06.06.2012: The server there sort of met with a bad end. And we moved, but we didn’t move our things. Because we didn’t need to. But, I’ve uploaded the story here. Read it when you feel all in the holiday spirit! Link: Last ChristmasRead More →

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One of THE best writing articles I’ve ever read: Simply put, in every social interaction, one person has (or attempts to have) more of a dominant role. Those in authority or those who want to exert authority use a collection of verbal and nonverbal cues to gain and maintain higher status. But it’s not just authority figures who do this. In daily life all of us are constantly adjusting and negotiating the amount of status we portray as we face different situations and interact with different people. Novelists have the daunting task of showing this dynamic of shifting submission and dominance through dialogue, posture, pauses,Read More →

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Alicia Rasley (blog) is a wildly talented writer and teacher who should get more recognition than she does. I bought her e-book in PDF, Discovering the Story Within, before people were even reading e-books. (My only complaint: it’s full of awesome worksheets, but the PDF is protected against copying, pasting, highlighting–anything you right-click to do, so filling them out in a word-processing program is impossible.) Plotting But, for today, and for GMC month, I’d like to point you to an article she did on her site called Plotting Without Fears. In this article she tells you the quick and dirty way to plot a story. FindRead More →