Re: Write – Francesca’s Excerpt
What follows is a short excerpt from a story. The author, “Francesca,” generously donated her work to be edited before a live audience (you). At my request, she made no edits to it. She simply typed...
View ArticleInternal Monologue
Last week we discussed point of view. Today we’re going to cover a corollary question: Depending on which point of view you’ve chosen, what is the best way to explore the inner thoughts of your main...
View ArticleThe Character in the Middle
Fatherhood [fah-ther-hood] (n): The delicate balance between making a child into the person he is going to be and letting the child decide who he is going to be. You won’t find that at dictionary.com....
View ArticleThe Characters in Orbit
Last week we talked about what it takes to make a realistic main character. We discussed how to start by making some decisions for him, but then letting him make other decisions for himself. We even...
View ArticleRe: Write – My Own Excerpt
There’s a certain amount of power in editing someone else’s work. In that moment, you are the expert. It can, and should, be a much more humbling experience to edit your own. It took me a long time to...
View ArticleThe Characters in Flux
There’s a certain amount of method acting to the madness of creating our characters. We have to understand them inside and out, then embrace the actions and dialogue that fit their personalities even...
View ArticleBackstory: The Untold Story
One of my favorite things about being a writing coach is that I get to come up with my own terminology, and I can make it as serious or as frivolous as I like. My unofficial list of rules of writing,...
View ArticleBackstory: A Case Study (Koontz)
Last week I introduced the Biographical Priority Index. It’s the handy-dandy system we can use to rate elements of a character’s backstory based on whether and when to introduce them. Priority 1...
View ArticleBackstory: A Case Study (Cline vs. King)
I’m a picky reader. I’m not shy about it. If I start a book and it doesn’t grab me quickly, I’ll put it down. I don’t know where I get it from ; my dad feels duty bound to finish any book he picks up....
View ArticleRe: Write – Backstory Exercise
We’ve been discussing backstory these last few weeks, and we’ll be wrapping it up today. I hope that I’ve shown you how important backstory is and how carefully you need to handle it. We’ll finish...
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