Craft

Breaking Rules

on March 8, 2007

I’ll be down in Jennifer Apodaca’s neck of the woods this weekend speaking to the Orange County Romance Writers of America about Breaking Rules. One of my favorite subjects! I can see hints of my rule breaking future in my past. While I was pretty much a good kid, a straight-A student, I usually found the easiest way to do anything. For example, I really didn’t like to do homework, especially at home. Because I was smart, I usually finished my homework in class while the teacher was talking. Surreptitiously. Or five minutes before class I’d whip out the 20… Read More


Chapter Endings and Beginnings

on January 4, 2007

Over at Backspace, a writers community I belong to, a member started a conversation about chapter endings and beginnings. I’ve followed it closely because in reading the thread I realized a lot about my own endings and beginnings. You might think that’s backwards–endings and beginnings–but in fact that’s exactly right. Why? Because the first sentence, paragraph or two–your hook, what you open your book with–is more important than any other beginning so I consider that separate. It should be crafted with the purpose of enticing the reader to keep reading. Sol Stein, a famous literary attorney, said that he and… Read More


Linear Writing

on December 21, 2006

Some writers can write scenes out of order, then put all these odd scenes into some semblance of sanity and have a completed book. Some people write the ending first. Or they see a scene in the middle of the book and write that, then go back to the beginning. Me? I write linearly. I go from Point A to Point B to Point C, etc. Or I should say, Chapter One, Two, Three, Four . . . Two examples to share. First, in SPEAK NO EVIL I thought I saw the ending. I was getting near deadline and I… Read More


Writing Habits

on October 19, 2006

Thanks to my friend Edie for the information that it takes 30 days to develop a habit. That’s great information to have . . . and I think it’s very true. Samuel Johnson said: The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken. Truer words were never spoken. Consider bad habits. How hard it is for people to quit smoking. To stop drug use. To stop biting their nails. But this goes true for good habits as well. Take brushing your teeth. When you form that habit early, the one… Read More


FLASHBACKS

on October 12, 2006

Stephen King thinks flashbacks are weak writing. (Oh, and speaking of King, he’s the recipient of the 2007 Grand Master award from Mystery Writers of America. Read more on my blog here.) When I read that, in his book ON WRITING, I was hurt. Why? Because I had just written THE HUNT and I’d included lots and lots of flashbacks. I didn’t want to think that I was a weak writer relying on worn plot devices to tell my story. Then I thought about the story, my story, and realized that using flashbacks made the book better, the story stronger… Read More


PROLOGUES

on October 5, 2006

To prologue or not to prologue, that is the question . . . How many of you have entered contests and been told by one or more judges that you “can’t” or “shouldn’t” have a prologue? (raising hand) Do you like prologues? Dislike them? Are neutral? How many of you skip prologues altogether? When I first heard that some people skip prologues, I was shocked. That’s like *gasp* reading the end of the book first. Or skipping chapter seventeen just because you don’t like the number seventeen. Prologues have a purpose. Or they should. I never took the debate about… Read More


The Ordinary World

on September 7, 2006

A friend of mine very close to publication asked a question on one of my writers loops about her opening chapter. A friend who had read it thought the first chapter was too slow. She said that she set up the heroine’s “ordinary world” ala Vogler (and everyone here knows how much I love Vogler!) but wanted to ask people what they felt about slower openings. I don’t have an answer to how slow or fast the opening should be. It depends on the story. BUT we all know that the first five pages are the most important in pulling… Read More


Are You Ready?

on August 3, 2006

I had a bunch of ideas to blog about. I could recap RWA, but that’s now old news. I was considering writing an open letter to International Thriller Writers about the importance of NOT scheduling their conference for the same week as RWA, but I decided to make that a private letter so only one person gets mad at me instead of hundreds. And I already lost that battle . . . So, as I do when I’m drinking my morning coffee (before the brain cells start communicating with each other), I surfed around a bunch of blogs I’d missed… Read More


How To Write

on June 22, 2006

There are only two ways to write. Either put your fingers on a keyboard and type away, or pick up a pen and do it the old-fashioned way. Now that you know how to write, you might ask why are there so many dang rules out there? That you have to plot (or not); that you can never change POV mid-scene (except sometimes); that you have to introduce your hero/heroine by page 32 (or the end of chapter one, or chapter five . . . ) We all have rules we like and follow (most of the time.) And because… Read More


Crossing the Threshold

on June 1, 2006

Okay, I’ll admit it. I love the hero’s journey. No, I don’t use it to plot my books. No, I don’t make sure that I have every step of the journey in my revisions. What I love is when I finish a book and can see the hero’s journey seamlessly laid out, the layering of journey upon journey, intersecting at key points in the story. If I can’t see the journey after I’m done, I know I have some work to do. Why? Because the hero’s journey is part of our storytelling heritage, the nexus that unites all of us… Read More