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 […]
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 […]
I’ve always been somewhere in the middle of the plotter-to-pantser spectrum, but no more. At least not for now. I’ve done a deep, painful, belly-smacking dive into the pool of plotting and I’m pretty sure that’s where I’ll stay. It hurt. There were tears. Notebooks were damaged in this endeavor. But I think I’ve come […]
I’ve been doing a bunch of reading about magic – not the fantasy kind, the stage performance kind – and have concluded we can learn from magicians. As writers, we pull our readers into a world of our shared invention. We can’t make a good story without someone to read it, to react to the […]
I’ve lost my head for perfume. When I’m writing, I can’t give up reading altogether, as some stronger-willed writers do. Instead, I gravitate to topics unlike whatever I’m writing. Instead of dutifully whittling down the pile on my nightstand, I add to it. This is a trait I apparently share with many fellow writers. I […]
I’m in the middle of the madness right now, trying to connect the beginning with the end. It’s the part that makes me want to give up, throw it all into the recycling bin, and start on the next idea. And that next idea always seems so tantalizingly easy when you’re in the messy middle, […]