As writers, we obsess over chapter endings for good reason. The best ones hook readers for another few minutes, or hours. Not so good and it’s lights-off-for-bedtime. We love a good chapter ending when we read it, but recognizing one and writing one are mysteriously different. “We know we need to craft good chapter endings […]
It takes a certain amount of gumption to create a world from scratch, especially when there’s magic involved. All the details to consider – How will it work? What are the limits of the magic? Who knows about it? What do they do with their new with their magic? Then, there’s the whole explaining-it-to-the-reader challenge. […]
n There’s been talk lately about whether children’s books should tackle hard subjects. This one’s a no-brainer for me. They should. Kids read for truth and their world is not the cheery candy-colored confection adults strive so mightily to create. They should be given hope, yes. But hope without reality is about as satisfying as […]
In the middle of The Thief, Megan Whalen Turner crafted an intense, high-action page-turner of a scene. But there’s no fight, no adversaries, and no great stand-off. Just a single character, Gen, our protagonist and thief, in a cave. Why does it work? Pacing, sensory details, verbs and sentence structure build and release tension. Detailed, […]
I’ve been thinking a lot about beginnings – what captures us quickly and draws us into the center of story? We’re told to start with action, bring the reader into the scene, and keep it moving. That’s important advice, keeping us from lingering in backstory, setting the scene for too long, or wandering until we […]
If there were Ten Commandments of writing for children, the main character shall change by the end of the story would be among them. Jumped, by Rita Williams-Garcia breaks the rule. I would argue that the main character does change, but she’s not the obvious character. Most of the story takes place in a day […]
In The Art of Memoir, Mary Karr writes of the need to burrow deeply into the writer’s psyche, to dig beneath the surface of how we want to appear to write with an authentic voice. “The author of a lasting memoir manages to power past the initial defenses, digging past the false self to where […]
Updated: Sep 11, 2021 Dear Architectural Digest, I am a big fan of your magazine. I’ve been reading it carefully for several years now, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the celebrity homes, the vacation places, and the adorable country estates in foreign countries. As I turned the last page of your most recent issue, it occurred to […]
I’ve been thinking a lot about beginnings: what makes them work? where are the key turning points? how do they relate to the rest of the story? Earlier this month, I realized that one piece of writing advice that we all hear over and over at every conference, lecture, or blog post about beginnings was […]