Tweet Don’t you wish people would post neutral news on social media? I’m not talking about what someone ate for dinner. But lately, my Facebook feed is filled with a monopoly of good news. Maybe it’s because we all need to hear some right now. I just saw a commercial talking about the joy of seeing the bright side of things and then I saw it was an ad for wine. The message was mixed. Do we need alcohol to see sunshine these days? Hopefully not. Here’s some neutral news. The publishing industry is getting flooded. I know that sounds…
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Tweet Recently, I took a free Coursera course on “How to Craft Contagious Content.” The information was so compelling I realized that you could use it to write anything. Emotional. How many times have you received a rejection or a critique that your story wasn’t emotional? It didn’t have enough heart in it. This is the emotional pull that makes people keep reading or unable to turn away from the television during a commercial. What affects you on an emotional level is what you remember. A social worker once told my mother that while my grandmother wouldn’t remember details, she…
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Tweet Since I’ve become a SCBWI member (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators), I’ve learned a lot of ways to beef up my fiction. An easy way I just read about in our recent Bulletin, is to read your story aloud in front of a mirror, to a loved one or a crowd of kids. The key, however, is to do it without a manuscript in front of you, but to recite from your memory. Obviously if you have a novel rather than a picture book, you won’t be able to read the whole story. But that shouldn’t matter.…
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Tweet Think of these features as the fast food of writing wisdom. Quick. Meaty. And effortless. Grab and go back to your writing. This week’s post is on fiction straight from the words of Rachel Joyce, author of a recent book I read and am still digesting: The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. In the back of this inspiring novel, I found an interview between Joyce and another author, Charlotte Rogan. I gleaned a handful of fiction and even insights on life from their conversation. I hope you will too: Rachel Joyce: “Reading is a creative process. As writers, we…
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Tweet Going to the SCBWI Hawaii Chapter Conference was well-worth the Benjamin this weekend. I learned a ton about fiction-a topic I rarely write about. It was an eye-opening experience teaching me all the mistakes I’m making and probably will make in my fiction future. I thought I’d save you the expense by sharing all the secrets I learned this weekend. So close your wallets and pull up your laptop. It’s going to get good right now. 1) Showing off. It’s tempting to be like a peacock and show off your feathers. But puffing up your ego with superfluous verbiage…