In the Book Writing World, Elizabeth has discussed time and again the “big” ingredients it takes to write a complete narrative/story/book/memoir. Sometimes it can help to put the main ingredients into a single sentence, a sort of pithy recipe. This is different from a PITCH that is used to, well, invite/entice/beg agents and outsiders to […]
As writers, we sometimes struggle with creating “an inner life” or a range of emotions for our central characters. In an effort to have stories that reflect realistic people with actual problems, we as writers could inflict our obligations and inconveniences on our characters. In a recent Book Writing World mentoring class, Elizabeth instigated an
In the Book Writing World, we have learned this about story structure: “The CRISIS is when the choice is made and the CLIMAX is when the choice is acted on.” That sounds good. Now, to the difficult question: What are your chracter’s choices? What happens after your character makes the first set of choices? How
Every writer has voices inside his or head, angels counseling us what to write, what details to include, what generalities to omit. Most of us don’t actually hear these voices…but we aware of them as we grapple with character and plot development, and try to finish writing our books. In the Book Writing World, Elizabeth
Governing by Committee Read More »
Our “job” as writers is to describe, describe, describe. This means that we as writers have to take what we are imagining and place it on the written page – share it with our readers. Sounds easy enough. But writing is hard and often we leave out something that could turn an otherwise okay description
Sum of our opportunities Read More »
First Loves Most of us get writers’ block. A lot. Then, inexplicably, the urge to clean the kitchen or watch bad TV takes over and before you can blink twice, the sun has set and another day has disappeared… The key to overcoming the experience of not being able to write is to keep the
Today is the “ides” of January, 2012. A good a day as any to start my new job as “Blog Editor” at the BWW. Elizabeth asked me recently, during our BWW workshop class, to go back to my favorite books, as a way of solving a problem that I’m having with plot in my novel-in-progress.
Back to the Future, BWW style Read More »
Today’s guest blogger is another Book Writing World member, whom I first met in an online memoir class I taught about twelve years ago through Gotham Writers Workshop. She joined the BWW and has been working on an interconnected series of stories (or will it be a novel? or a memoir? Read on . .
How to Write a Book Read More »
Imagine you are feeling unfit. You want to exercise, but you are nervous, out of shape, weak. So you decide you will read about exercise and visualize it until you feel ready to run or dance or lift weights. It’s easy to see how silly this is. Sure, reading can be a great way to
Writing and Risk: How to Dare Read More »
“A real writer is one who really writes,” Marge Piercy said. How, then, do you make the time and wrangle the self-confidence to do the deed? How do you turn the dream into a daily practice, the wonderful idea into an actual book? As a published author, I have been working on those questions for
How to Write a Saleable Book You Love Read More »
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