Category: How To and Tips
Learning as I Go
I can’t begin any discussion of what I’ve learned about writing while writing without a disclaimer: I’ve learned things that work for me. Aside from a few college-level writing courses, the books I’ve read on writing, and what I’ve picked up from other authors at workshops and conventions, I am completely self-taught. And I’m constantly […]
Write the Story You Know
Write what you know. That’s what everyone says. But if you aren’t confident you know anything, writing what you know can seem inadequate. I spent far too many years trying to write about things I thought I should know. My real success as a writer didn’t begin until I finally started writing about the heart-wrenching, […]
Dialogue and Subtext: The Spoken and the Unspoken
Subtext is a key element in transforming blah serviceable dialogue into dazzling dialogue. Why? Because great, genuine sounding dialogue happens at two levels: what is spoken and what is unspoken. What is said and what is meant. Children, drunks, iconoclasts, and people with impaired social skills tend to say exactly what they mean all the […]
This Much I Know Is True (About Writing Fiction. And Me.)
I didn’t always know these things. I discovered them like fossils. Some are elements of craft: I now know that every protagonist needs a secret that will eventually be discovered or confessed. That secret should evoke deep feelings in her, such as shame, guilt, and the like. Some are about publishing: I now know what […]
How To Build A Character
If you type ‘how to build a’ into Google, you’ll be given the options of shed, fence, house, website. (I don’t think it will be too long before ‘girl’ is added to the list due to Caitlin Moran cornering this part of the literary market.) All of these options give guidance on construction and the […]
My Husband Doesn’t Read My Books: Ways to Support an Author Without Spending a Dime
I glance up from autographing a copy of my newest book to see my husband across the store. He has our mastiff Henry with him—a character in all of my novels—and is surrounded by women asking him questions. Then, the dreaded question, the one we both hope he won’t be asked, comes out of a […]
Writing Fiction Based on Fact, or ‘How to Make Life Difficult for Yourself’
In December 1836, a bricklayer found a torso resting in a pool of frozen blood beneath a paving stone on the Edgware Road, London. Over the next few months, the remaining body pieces were found, and in May 1837 two people were tried: James Greenacre was convicted of murdering Hannah Brown; his lover, Sarah Gale, […]
How Collaging and Scrapbooking Helps Me Write Better
I first began collaging soon after I turned thirteen; I still have sketchbooks from those years, page after page filled with collage narratives that I had abstracted from paper pieces ripped from magazines and newspapers. These sketchbooks also contained my tentative forays into water-color painting: a fuchsia bougainvillea blooming beneath a cerulean blue sky, a […]
Book Reviews and the Author Psyche
Authors have a love/hate relationship with book reviews. Reviews improve a book’s popularity. The more popular, the more sales. We want more reviews, but we don’t always like what’s said in those reviews. Here’s the thing, authors should concern themselves with the number of reviews, not the content. The content is for readers. It can […]
Leaving Your Comfort Zone: Reading Out of Genre
Historical fiction makes me swoon with delight. It’s what I write and what I love to read. Immersed in a 1920’s speakeasy in New York City or in the servants’ quarters in Regency England, the world around me falls away. When real life calls, I’m startled to discover I still live in the twenty-first century. […]
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