#Amwriting #WritingCommunity #Writers (Beth Turnage Blog) Coming Up Short? You May Be Skipping Your Character’s Feelings I’ve been reading a novelist whose first two books have me looking at the story through my developmental editor’s lens. Occupational hazard. Once you spend enough time figuring out why a scene doesn’t work, it’s difficult to turn that […]
The scribe is burning through the “trash that pays the mortgage.” This is good because, this, theoretically will leave her more time to work on my story. But I’m dismayed that she’s not writing about me. (Whatever happened to finishing what you start, Scribe?) Scribe: Look, if you weren’t so cagey about what you actually […]
What’s the biggest obstacle a writer faces? Even if you have outlined your book. Staring at the page for the start of that new chapter. Endlessly. All writers do this—even famous ones. Take, for instance, Sylvia Plath: Sylvia Plath (from The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath) Monday, July 7 (1958): …But I have no idea how […]
Forget the controversy over whether to use AI in your prose. This issue will shake out as writers use AI more and develop best practices in writing fiction with AI. But you can do some things with AI that help you with the mundane writing tasks that help to speed up your work with nasty […]
Even if you despise outlining, give it a shot. A few hours of outlining with save days of beating your head on your laptop. Trust the woman that writes novels for a living on a deadline. An outline will give you a clearer idea of where your characters are heading and make it easier for […]
Having worked as a ghostwriter for eight years, writing nearly every day, while working quickly, efficiently, and sparked the need for me to develop ninja wordsmithing skills. And for this I turned to machine editing tools. When I first started, I suffered some backlash from my writing friends. The common sentiment was this: Sorry, I […]
You’ve sweated, plotted and struck the nubs of your fingers into your keyboard enough times to wear indentations into the keys. The first draft is in your hands. What do you do now? You fix it. Even best selling authors have to repair their story structure. Kevin Hearn gives a nice accounting about the process… Continue reading The Art of #Writing–Audit Your Novel’s #StoryStructure