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Recent Posts
- What Exactly is Imagery?
- The Writing Sampler
- Classics Don’t Qualify as Comps
- Dealing with Painful Critiques
- The Power of Laughter
- Scoring Your Sense of Humor
- Why Do We Read Emotions?
- Distinguishing types of laughter
- Why Not AI?
- The Price of Staying Connected
- The Physiology of Love and Fear
- What Catches My Attention in a Book?
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Category Archives: Writer’s resource
What Exactly is Imagery?
What is the difference between describing details and creating imagery? Perhaps I should ask what is the difference in describing details that are exquisite and those full of boring minutia. The concept is difficult to explain because it does depend … Continue reading
Posted in Showing versus telling, Writer's resource
Tagged books, Description, details, imagery, Literature, Philosophy, poetry, Writing
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Classics Don’t Qualify as Comps
Before attending my first writer’s conference in Oklahoma, I poured over the biography of all the speakers. Each one was asked to disclose a classic novel in their want to read list. Despite the different books listed I was shocked … Continue reading
Posted in Drama and movies, Literary devices, Psychology, Teaching writing skills, Trends in books
Tagged agent, books, comparable-comp, dark-fiction, dostoevsky, Fiction, Literature, Publishing, Writing
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Why Not AI?
I write under a curse that requires me to experiment and revise as I create. Despite considering ideas, creating outlines to guide me and re-reading my initial work to improve it, the quality of my writing is not consistent. Unfortunately, … Continue reading
The Physiology of Love and Fear
The demand for writing from the character’s point of viewpoint is increasing. Sights, sounds, textures and tastes should reflect the perception of the character. But, what about physiological reactions? These descriptions capture the racing heart and euphoria, or the rise … Continue reading
Are You What You Read?
We don’t seem to be recovering from the drop in literacy within the United States among school age children in 2019 and following years. The standard response is blame the problem on children not receiving an adequate education during the … Continue reading
Posted in Characters, Emotional intelligence, Literature, Trends in books
Tagged Education, Language arts, Literacy, teachers, teaching
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Pushover Protagonist?
How often have you heard warnings against creating a protagonist who is the opposite of a mover and shaker, one who simply lets things happen to them? Or one who watches the other characters struggle without taking charge? A main … Continue reading
Writing and the Stock Market
All ideas have been done before. It’s basically impossible not to reuse one. If it hasn’t been done before, the idea will make almost no sense to anyone. That defeats the purpose of using it. Conformists want ideas that are … Continue reading
What are Looks in a Story?
If I describe one of my protagonists as chubby with a large pyramid-shaped nose, fat eyelids and thin hair, I believe I’ve indicated she is not attractive. So, she is not deluding herself when she says she is ugly. However, … Continue reading
Posted in Characters, Story structure
Tagged appearance, beauty, book-review, books, complex-characters, Fiction, looks, Writing, writing-tips
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A Stuck Character
The character that I’ve imagined is stuck. Literally. He’s in solitary confinement, or in a dungeon, or abandoned on an island, and I know how he’s going to escape. But, for now he’s stuck. Should I just jump ahead to … Continue reading
Do You Know What Polyandry Means?
If you are familiar with Clint Eastwood’s first movie, a musical called Paint Your Wagon you’d realize that a woman having more than one husband is not a recent idea. If you recognize “polyandry” as an ancient Greek term for … Continue reading
Posted in Drama and movies, Novels, romance, Story structure
Tagged book-review, book-reviews, books, Dr. Zhivago, genre, harem, Madame Bovary, Paint your wagon, polyandry, polygamy, romance, The Awakening, Writing
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