Over the last few months I've been watching Korean dramas with some of my friends. I find them preferable to their American counterparts for a few reasons. For one, they're often cleaner, and if the characters do swear, they do so in another language to where the subtitles filter it out and you don't actually … Continue reading Korean Dramas: Bad Plots or Thorough Explorations of Themes?
Tag: Plot
I've been thinking about the romance genre lately, trying to explain what it is that "happens" in a romance story. Obviously, it's about a couple finding each other (or realizing that they already know each other) and reaching their happily-ever-after moment (whether it does or doesn't last is another matter entirely, but unless you write … Continue reading Romance: Two Best-Selling Plot Types
Recently, I've been dealing with...well, we won't call it writer's block. I wasn't out of things to write, merely stumped on how to get from Point A to Point B without creating major plot holes. And it was very tempting to just skip the problematic bit and go ahead to the next chapter or section, … Continue reading Do You Write Chronologically?
In writing, there is generally a push to be original, as there is with most art. To do something new, exciting, and fresh. To break out of the old molds and create a masterpiece. But I think most of us write a more "collective" version of fiction, where we share a theme, an archetype, a trope, or … Continue reading Archetypes and Variation Fiction
Though toying with writing about "the grand X-it" today, I've decided to forgo puns and word-cheats and use actual X words. XAG and XAU are the financial abbreviations for ounces of silver and gold, and Googling either of them will bring up how much those metals are currently valued on the stock market/gold and silver … Continue reading Xag and Xau: What Matters to Your Characters? #atozchallenge #amwriting
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
Climaxes can be the most memorable part of a novel. It's the moments when your characters' futures are decided. Everything has been brought together for a final struggle and...personally, my writing usually stalls right about then. And I think it's partly because of the nature of a climax. Just before the climax, you get to … Continue reading Crafting a Compelling Climax #atozchallenge #amwriting
A few weeks ago I came across a review on Goodreads mentioning Laurie Colwin and how, in that reader's opinion, she was one of the few recent authors who wrote about happiness. My curiosity piqued, I ordered one of her novels, Happy All the Time, through my local library, and I let myself entertain modest … Continue reading What Does It Mean to Write about Happiness?
I give my end-of-week post to other authors and bloggers whose work is worth noting. There are so many excellent articles out there, so many good poems and stories and artwork that I want to use my online space, once a week, to send all of you to see something you might otherwise miss. To … Continue reading Spotlight Saturday #12: Plotting a Memoir
Humans are born storytellers. Shortly after learning to string sentences together, we start sharing them: “Mommy, I did this…” or “Daddy, I did that….” We are eager to hear about others experiences, supposedly to learn from them and avoid their mistakes, and we like basking in the glory that our own stories give us (after … Continue reading The Difference between Stories and Novels
Andrea Lundgren 