Simple Mystery

I recently read Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass, along with its companion workbook. I actually liked the workbook better. It had a lot of good exercises, although be warned: they’re not easy. Basically what really appeals to me about this book is its incredibly high standards. Your character must be not just good,…

So, I’m a little over halfway done with the book… 43,000 words. I feel like it’s missing something, though, so I’m taking a week off from writing to (1) let some ideas marinate and (2) let Mark finish reading the thing, so I have someone to talk to about the plot. I really needed to…

Well, I’m halfway there. I’ve reached the 2nd major plot point in my book, and it happened at about 35,000 words, which is nearly ideal. I think there’s some tinkering yet to do, but things are really accelerating now. I’m beginning the planning for Arc III, which will go from the mid-point to (nearly) the…

Yesterday we had a big storm, and a limb broke off a tree and landed in our driveway. The thing is huge! I’m feeling so lucky; fifteen feet over and I’d be calling roofers right about now.

People say TV is bad for you, but for a writer, a good long lounge fest every day might not be the worst thing in the world. You can’t learn about prose from watching television and movies, but you can learn about a lot of other things that are important to storytelling: pacing, tension, character,…

Check out Book Mooch. Here’s how it works: you list the books you want to give away. People request them, and you mail them out. Then you receive points, with which you can request the books that other people have listed. Looks like I’ve finally found a home for that copy of The Other Boleyn…

A cool little writers’ resource can be found at http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/. You can search for popular baby names by decade, birth year, and (to a smaller extent) state, meaning that you can get a list of suitable character names based on when and where your character was born. Useful!

I’ve posted the best of our Morocco pictures on Flickr. You can click the “Slideshow” icon in the upper right to view it as a slideshow.

When I was home recently, Matt gave me a copy of The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch and Jeffrey Zaslow. I devoured it over the weekend. If you haven’t already heard the story, it goes like this: Carnegie Mellon has a lecture series of long standing called “The Last Lecture,” in which it invites faculty…

In my past two entries I’ve talked about how virtues and flaws make fictional characters lovable. But there’s another factor, one entirely separate from character, that engages the reader’s emotions and makes her care about your story people. I’m talking about pain. Well, pain, and a few other emotional situations that amp up the stakes…