I like to plot the stories I’m writing. I know that isn’t everyone’s style, but it’s the way I typically work. I say typically because my current work in progress was not plotted. At least, not fully plotted. I had a pretty clear vision of the story line, but I hadn’t worked out all the details. So, I’m busy writing the story, taking it in the direction I wanted it to go, and then last night I realized that somewhere along the line the story got away from me. When I say that I mean, I’m not quite clear where it will go next. I’m not exactly sure how I feel about it either. I had a brief ‘Now what?’ moment […]
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Giving Voice to your Characters
One of the more difficult things for me to do is give my characters their own unique ‘voice’. I’m not talking dialogue here, at least, not exactly. It’s more about writing dialogue that lets the reader know who is speaking without having to put in tags to tell them. Does that make sense? Let me put it another way… in most dialogue, you get things like ‘Dan said’ or ‘Sally asked’. But what if you have several characters speaking? Or maybe you have a long session of dialogue. Do you really want to write ‘Dan said’ and ‘Sally said’ every time they actually speak? Not only that, but don’t you want to be able to have something said and have […]
Read moreDoes Weather Really Affect Your Writing?
You bet it does. We are currently stuck in our third (or is it fourth) straight week of rain. Yesterday, it looked like we would finally get some nice weather… for about ten minutes and then it started to hail! As much as I like the rain, this is simply too much. To make things even worse, I’ve let the weather get in the way of my writing. I finish my day, face the rain on my way home and when it’s time for me to write, I simply don’t feel like it. That means I’ve only added about 1,000 words in the past few days. Nowhere near what I’d like to have done. So I feel guilty about my […]
Read moreBad Things Don’t Always Happen to Bad People
We all love those movies where the bad guy gets his. I’ve actually stood up and cheered when it happens. I’ve seen others do it too, so I don’t feel like my reaction is strange. The same holds true in books although I’m usually a little more restrained. But what about when a good character gets the short end of the stick? I remember watching “Bridge to Terabithia” last year on a flight from Calgary to Toronto (Spoiler alert!). The early parts of the movie involve Josh and Leslie becoming friends and inventing Terabithia where they can be the heros. Then, Leslie unexpectedly dies. I remember the shock and the tears running down my cheeks as I continued to watch […]
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