It’s hard to write believable action when the most exciting thing you’ve done this year is spike your cat’s water bowl.
I say this because I’ve had a pretty action packed life and the action I’ve lived, I can write. One of my most infamous memories is of being attacked by gang members a couple years back. Thanks to that encounter, I can now say with confidence black eyes are not my style, a broken nose isn’t as flattering as I’d hoped, and hard as I try, I can’t rock stitches.
Life happens. New jobs, finals, promotions, moves, family emergencies—we get it, you have a legit reason for not writing. Trouble is, once you have the free time to start back up, it’s daunting. It’s been so long. Where to begin?
You’re writing, speeding through scenes in a gush of inspiration, when your characters reach the town, mountain, forest of _______ and your (metaphorical) feet suddenly sink into the time-sucking swamp of naming.
Quick poll.
How many of you when you roll out of bed in the morning find your house and writing project in perfect order?
There’s a rich aroma of rainforest coffee wafting through the quiet and dark house as you sit down to your clean desk and boot up your laptop. You pull up your documents and immediately your fingers start flying over the keyboard. No hunting around for your charger, no searching for that character chart you filled out yesterday, or your hand drawn map—it’s all there and ready to go.
If “that’ll be the day…” is your response, this post is for you.
Getting organized is often the bane of a writer’s existence. But it doesn’t have to be. Here are a few helpful tips I’ve picked up along the bumpy writer’s road.
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We often overlook scent in our writing, opting to create our characters and worlds through sight alone, but that’s a cheap version of the human experience.
Have you ever passed a stranger in the airport and been slammed with homesickness because they’re wearing the same cologne as your husband? Cried because that shirt still smells like the loved one who’s now gone? Felt like you were home despite the miles just because a certain candle was lit?
Scents are tied to memories and memories are inextricably linked to emotions. Good stories elicit emotion in their readers by making the characters and the world real in the same way that readers experience their own world– through their five senses.
Here are some words to help you incorporate scent into your writing.
Hey Authors~ Starting today, on Fridays, we will feature new people involved in the writing world, unpublished and published authors, editors, agents. Please find our contact information if you are interested in being one of them.
Today’s feature is an aspiring unpublished writer. We present…
Everybody loves being empowered, right? Here are the promised tips that will help you make the most of this material-rich season.
Some people call it a muse, while others say they get their inspiration from everyday things: people or events that catch their imagination in just the right way. Sometimes it’s something as simple as reading a story that ends differently than you’d wanted it to, sparking your imagination into how it should have gone, if the pen was in your hand[i].
Wherever your story idea emerges from, the next (and sometimes worst) part can be determining if the idea is worth keeping. I don’t mean jotting down a note to yourself about an idea – that’s never a waste of time.
They have a way of weaseling their way into our hearts.
After the years have passed and the details blurred, the thing that remains is our relationship with people.
That’s the magic in reading a book. We spend time getting to know characters and in turn, they let us into their lives.
Creating lovable characters is no easy task. There’s no set formula. There are, however, tools that can help. Here are four tools you can use to develop your characters.
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Choosing which writing tool is going to be the most helpful really comes down to three things: place, time, and purpose. Think of it as a choose your own adventure. Inspiration strikes you as you are:
The Spinning Pen 