Joyce Carol Oates talks about characters in her books and the difficulty of writing realistic characters, including animal characters. She suggests sticking with writing dialogue between two people for two hours. She also talks about Rebecca from The Gravedigger’s Daughter and how Oates envisioned her as an early version of her own grandmother.
The How to Write Shop has only been up and running a few months, but in that time we believe we’ve had some excellent articles. Today, we want to highlight a few that have top scores from readers, aka most visited. Number Five comes from columnist and young adult author, Kristi Cook on writing young … [Read more…]
-January- War continues to wage between Author Solutions and many professional writers’ organizations. This battle started at the end of 2009 when Harlequin announced its new venture…eventually named Dellart. Fall out includes these organizations unrecognizing Harlequin as a qualifying market for membership. An agreement between Harlequin and most of these organizations eventually reached. Amazon and … [Read more…]
When asked if she would write non-Chinese characters, Amy Tan answers that it is the same as asking if she could write from the point of view of a man. The answer….she could, but why would she? She continues to talk about writing from her own personal experience and the experience of her family and … [Read more…]
The hero’s journey is a classic story structure that seems to be embedded in all of us. This video gives examples of the narrative quest from movies, myths, and literature. It’s worth a view, especially if the hero’s journey and narrative quest structure is new to you as a writer.