Category Archives: Writing trends

Collaborating with Other Authors

How do multiple writers work together to produce a work superior to their individual abilities?  With a great deal of struggling. Despite the idea that synergy, or combining abilities of people in groups, to produce better ideas than individuals most … Continue reading →

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Artificial or Average

Recently I took a hiatus from writing poetry or fiction for over an hour almost every day. It wasn’t really intentional. Originally, I saw the two weeks’ work shut down at the end of the year as a gleaming opportunity … Continue reading →

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False Starting Advice

Sometimes, the worst advice to give a new writer is that there are rules to writing and the new writer must master these. Especially before attempting to break any of them. Not all writers are created equally. And, even seasoned … Continue reading →

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The Monstrous Part of Writing

The introduction of writing into the state educational achievement tests resulted in a plethora of writing models. One teacher supported the “Six Plus One Trait” writing model with a kind of fanaticism. Others plugged a device called the “freeze frame” … Continue reading →

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Did You Really Mean What You Said?

Dialogue in writing differs from real conversations. Fictional characters rarely ramble on for pages, circumventing what they really want to say with phrases that sound good but have hard to pinpoint meanings. Most of the uh’s, um’s and pauses in … Continue reading →

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Distorted POVs

It amuses me when people ask which point of view is best. But, I probably chuckled more when a new writer asked if it was okay to describe what a character was thinking when writing in the third-person POV.   “Can’t … Continue reading →

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Elusive Elaboration

My friend bubbled over with excitement about her new concept for a river adventure story. She had all the characters, the settings and the basic ideas in her mind. However, as she began writing out scenes, some of the escapades … Continue reading →

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The Real Adventure

My parents sometimes claimed that I spent my entire childhood with my nose in a book. But, I didn’t learn how to read until I was five. Before that time I chose books with intriguing pictures in them so that … Continue reading →

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Asking for Ideas

Writing a well-crafted novel is hard labor, like going through a struggle harder than childbirth. Some authors want to seek out a short-cut, a sure thing, or a fully fleshed-out plot that has been used successfully in the past. However … Continue reading →

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The Pleasure of Rereading Books

As a child I used to read Black Beauty repeatedly. This book sat open on my lap when I was supposed to be taking a nap with my head on the desk in first and second grade. Each time I … Continue reading →

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