The goal of every first-time novelist or memoirist is to see their book between covers. The paradox is that when we make this goal more important than the story, we tend to find ourselves …
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The Theme of the Story
Shakespearean plays begin with the chorus telling us what we are about to see. They don’t tell us the whole plot but rather provide a context for the events that are about to follow. That …
Making Time to Write
If you’re writing your first novel, you’re probably wondering how other writers ever make the time to write. We’re all busy. We have day jobs, families, therapists, that plumbing issue …
Overcoming Writer’s Block
It’s not just first-time writers that get stuck. Every writer, except Stephen King, experiences writer’s block. Writer’s block is often an absence of information. The information can be related …
What is My Title?
Those scant few words on the cover of our book or screenplay can be the most labor-intensive work of our entire manuscript. Coming up with a good title can be a bitch. We may have a working title, a …
Writing Fiction: Letting Go of Our Story
“Danger lies in the writer becoming the victim of his own exaggeration, losing the exact notion of sincerity, and in the end coming to despise truth itself as something too cold, too blunt for his …
The Rewrite
The first draft is about diving into the unknown, invoking the muse, and writing from our right brains. The next step, the rewrite, is about switching gears. Basically, it is about becoming …