by Randy Ingermanson What do you do if your computer crashes and you lose your entire novel? That would be bad. That would be horrible. That should never happen, but it does happen to some writers every year. And once a novel is lost, it’s lost. The only solution is to travel back in time
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Top 10 Reader’s Complaints TN Wesley did some research on Amazon.com and discovered some regularly appearing complaints from reviewers and readers. Here are the top ten: Unreal and underdeveloped characters who feel like stick figures. Overly wordy prose laced with grammatical errors and typos. Dull, predictable, repetitive stories written in a confusing style. Keeping readers
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Hierarchies, Storyboards, Flowcharts, Mindmaps, and Wireframes Remember in school when our science teacher (with the permanent frown lines) attempted to persuade us that graphic organizers were important in our documentation? Perhaps my teacher quit that year due to having me as her student, as I was compelled to fill up the graphic organizers with more
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by DiAnn Mills Writers daily receive blog posts that offer advice to build their careers. The publishing world has many sides, and each facet needs attention. We read— How to be successful How to sell more books How to strengthen characterization or content How to research and interview How to increase exposure through social media
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by Gina Burgess She looked at his expressionless face and wondered what he was thinking. She remembered that key, and the box it opened. Bernice might know. Bernice was the neighborhood gossip and tidbit collector. Betty tried to quit thinking about Bob to no avail. She looked out of her window and saw his car.
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by Randy Ingermanson “What’s naked dialogue?” “It’s dialogue without any action, description, interior monologue, or interior emotion.” “Can you do that?” “In short stretches.” “Why would you do that? It sounds stupid.” “If the main conflict is in the dialogue, then adding anything else takes the edge off the conflict.” “I don’t believe that
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by Randy Ingermanson [Editor’s note: Fodder for thoughtful planning now, gearing up for January 2019] Organization: Evolution, Not Revolution January is the big-money month of the year, I suspect, for people who run gyms. And people who sell diet plans. And anyone promising to make you over fast. We all want a revolution in our
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Here’s Randy Ingermanson’s writing advice to himself before he became rich and famous. At least it’s the advice he would have given himself when he was young and inexperienced. It is from Jerry Jenkin’s blog. You get good at writing by following these three simple steps: 1) Write a lot. The more you write, the
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by Randy Ingermanson It sounds horribly old-fashioned to say this, but once a month, I go to a critique group with real, live writers. These days, it seems that most writers communicate electronically. That’s all fine, but it’s just more fun to get together in person, so we do it. One of the most common
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by Jennifer Harris The Big Picture – Part 1 Big picture editing—also called developmental editing or the revision stage—can be an overwhelming task, especially if this is your first novel. The big picture edit is where you will start molding your raw material into a polished finished novel. This is the stage of editing where
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