Finding your muse is hard enough but then you have to keep her! Last summer I did a talk about finding and working with my muse. I laughingly called it “How I Grab My Muse, Pin Her to the Wall, and Make Her Sing!” Yeeks, no wonder she hides from me. All kidding aside, the … [Read more…]
Article One in How to Write a Scene, Scenes in Fiction by Lori Devoti, a How To Write Fiction Series. When I first started writing I sat through a number of workshops where multi-published NY Times-best-selling authors would spout what are and aren’t scenes in fiction, and what could and couldn’t be in a book … [Read more…]
Twenty Five questions to ask a literary agent may seem like a lot. Afterall, there are a lot of great, reputable agents out there but there are also a lot of not so great and not so reputable ones. Even more important to realize is that even if you find a great, reputable agent interested … [Read more…]
What makes a book or movie special…makes it stick with you long after the cover is closed and the final credits have rolled? The special effects? The car chase? The slapstick comedy? Maybe for a while, but stories that really have lasting power contain one thing, great characters. And, honestly, building great book-carrying characters isn’t as … [Read more…]