Out in the stone courtyard Waiting You're right there on the other side Your world beyond you Hidden in sun and shade and the whisper of a thousand plants. What would I find If I were there Closer Accepted Even invited? Have weeds overrun your garden? Or is all beautiful Tranquil As alive as ever? … Continue reading The Courtyard
Category: Art
Villains are a part of a great deal of fiction. Not every story has to have one, of course, but the action/adventure, science fiction, and fantasy genres tend to rely on the presence of evil-minded characters pretty heavily (and even romance can have a trouble-making rival). But what are our options when it comes to … Continue reading What To Do With Villains? #atozchallenge #amwriting #fantasy
For pantsters and plotters both, understanding your characters is essential. We need to know who we're writing about to be able to outline an accurate plot or to be able to write the scenes, following our characters lead. But how do we learn about our characters? Outline them. Many authors do this, in the form of … Continue reading Understanding Your Characters #atozchallenge #amwriting
There are moments when all of us have tried too hard, one way or another. We have a particular goal, and we're striving towards it. Despite the fact that our writing isn't flowing naturally, we keep on, fighting the current and our own writing tendencies (and sometimes, our own characters). But whenever this happens, … Continue reading The Dangers of Trying Too Hard #amwriting #atozchallenge
Readers like to know what they're getting into before they start a book. They want to know if it's a series, what genre, and what they can expect, overall, before they start reading (unless they trust you and your stories already, in which case they might just want to read without any foreknowledge). This is … Continue reading Synopsis: How Summing Up Your Story Makes All The Difference #amwriting #atozchallenge
Sometimes, I think our status needs to be #amnotwriting. Because we shouldn't always be writing. Our art can suffer from constant output, and we can forget how real people interact--how they talk, how they think, how they act--if we're only surrounded by their literary counterparts all the time. We can forget what it's like to … Continue reading Why Writers Need Rest #atozchallenge #amnotwriting
I've been looking forward to writing this for some time. And now that we're at "P"...here goes! Early on, I'd never heard of the difference between pantsters and plotters. I just wrote. But then, as I interacted with other authors, I came to realize that everyone doesn't write a story in the same way. Some … Continue reading A Pantster or a Plotter: How Do You Write? #amwriting #atozchallenge
Description is one of my least favorite things to write--it feels like such a catalog of objects, colors, and sensations--but it's a necessary evil. Action can't happen in a vacuum; readers need some sense of where a character is, even if its only very general. Some authors have gotten away with very little description. Jane … Continue reading Why a Writer Needs Observation #amwriting #atozchallenge
One of the best things about the A to Z blogging challenge is all the networking that takes place--the visiting of other blogs, the comments, the new thoughts being exchanged. In my experience with blogging, there are two kinds of networking: Fake and Real. Superficial or Genuine. Superficial Networking: This is where we stop by … Continue reading Networking–Real or Fake? #atozchallenge #networking
I was going to write about novels under "N," but I also wanted to cover "Networking," so I'm going to talk about the novel under "Making a Novel." The novel, as we know it now, has been evolving for centuries and will likely continue to do so. It began in such forms as Tom Jones and Pamela, in … Continue reading Making a Novel #atozchallenge #amwriting
Andrea Lundgren 