Author Intrusion I’d like to introduce you to a term, if you aren’t familiar with it already, called “author intrusion”. You have author intrusion when you’re reading a story and all of a sudden something is said in a way that pulls you out of the “zone” your imagination is in. It might be a […]
Writing Lesson 34 – Creating a Story World
April 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Many of my posts this year focused on character development. In this lesson, I want to touch on research. Get to “know” your characters through research… In a character driven novel, the writer must learn what makes the character act a certain way. By the time I start a novel, I know my character as […]
Writing Lesson 30 – Write What You Know
April 2, 2010 By Leave a Comment
. . . Or Don’t Know! When I was a teenager starting to pursue my writing passion, I was constantly bombarded with the adage: write what you know. I found this a little bit frustrating, to say the least. After all, I was about fourteen. What did I know? Very little, I’ll tell you. Imagine […]
Writing Lesson 17 – Research Can Be Fun!
December 18, 2009 By Leave a Comment
I tell my writing students that I was a hopelessly nerdy teenager. When I illustrate by explaining that I looked forward to writing research papers because I just loved to dig through the dusty shelves of the library, they are inclined to agree! But I insist that research can be fun. Since it’s getting near […]
