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Linktopia

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Photobucket - Video and Image HostingMiss Snark reminds writers yet again that flipping the bird to your agent is not a good business practice…Victoria Strauss busts a few myths about new writers…Nienke posts a nice interview with author Michelle Rowan…Ray gets down with show not tell, and as usual I want to rush back to my wip and fix a few things…

Booksquare examines the month-old Folio Literary Management team and likes what she sees…Galleycat takes stock of the cover art used for a variety of Muhammad Ali biographies, and comes up with some telling conclusions…Paperback Writer has been using the Random Title Generator blog to hilarious results…Melly muses about the difference between literary artistry and writing more commercial fiction… [Read more…]

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Secrets of the Silver Screen: Telling

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Last week, I highlighted the novelist's golden rule: show but don’t tell. Well, guess what? Screenwriters break this rule all the time themselves. They can get away with writing, for example, “character is suddenly passionate” and “he’s really mad.” What the heck? Doesn’t this fly in the face of what I said about screenwriters showing through dialogue? Nope; it works with it. And I’m going to tell you why… It works with it, because the screenwriter is counting on actors and … [Read more...]

Resistance

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“Whatcha waiting, whatcha waiting, whatcha waiting for?” Gwen Stefani In my previous post, Habits, I mused about the necessity of getting into a habit of writing if one wanted to get anything accomplished. In that post, I wrote about ruthlessly claiming the best (writing) time of day as your own. There is another reason a writer needs to cultivate the habit of writing: to overcome Resistance. Resistance, coined by Steven Pressfield in his book The War of Art (given to me by the goddess … [Read more...]

Sleep Writing

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In a recent post, Kath alluded to night-writing friends, and I’ll confess I’m one of them. I don’t know what it is about the evening hours, but my muse starts to dance whether I’m sleepy or not. Maybe it’s because I’m working frenetically 9-5ish on freelance writing, and in the evening I feel all loose in the brain, able to dive into more creative ventures. I almost always give into the urge to do something—anything—on my story when this happens, and I’ve discovered a secret benefit to working … [Read more...]

Secrets of the Silver Screen: Showing

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A script can’t be written like a novel. But can a novelist learn something by leaning over the shoulder of a screenwriter? Clear character action/reaction and dialogue make up 99% of a good script; a character's musings are nearly impossible to convey on the big screen. A novelist, on the other hand, can linger in character thought for pages—even chapters—on end. Bottom line: The screenwriter works on a girdled canvas. One book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Screenwriting points out an … [Read more...]

Habits

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The distance between people who actually write novels, and people who talk about writing novels, is wide. Between them lies a chasm, the pit that defines the pro from the amateur: actual results from setting fingers to keypad and doing it. There’s only one way the talker can become the doer, and that’s to get into the habit of writing. There are many ways to skin the rabbit, but I’ve only heard of one way to write a novel. And writing takes time, oh lordy it takes time. Most novelists … [Read more...]

ANALYSIS: Serenity

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One of the things we like to do is analyze movies for the storytelling structure. Our latest film analysis is the Joss Whedon sci-fi flick, Serenity. Whedon’s movie is an outgrowth of his t.v. series Firefly. Fox TV abused the show by giving it crappy time slots and showing the episodes out of order before pulling the plug due to bad ratings (Whedon has famously declared he’ll never work with Fox again). The series found a home on the SciFi Network, and the respectful treatment helped it … [Read more...]

Amazon’s Fan Connection

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This from USA Today's blog, "Pop Candy": Amazon.com has lauched a feature where authors can connect with fans through blog updates, book recommendations, reviews and more. So far more than 1,000 authors have joined Amazon Connect, including Rick Moody, Elizabeth Kostova and Wonkette's Ana Marie Cox. Moody, by the way, highly recommends Brian Wilson's SMiLE and Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49. … [Read more...]

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Lydia Joyce

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Recently, Kathleen and Therese chatted with bestselling romance author Lydia Joyce about career and craft. Enjoy! Interview with Lydia Joyce Q: Your successful debut novel THE VEIL OF NIGHT and your equally-successful follow-up, MUSIC OF THE NIGHT, have been described as having a gothic quality. Was that intentional? A: Yes! I love the Gothics of the mid-1800s through the early 20th century, and I wanted to play off that trope in my first book, sort of stand it on its head while still … [Read more...]

The Storytelling Magic of Project Runway, Part 2

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And so the evil Santino, in a slash of scissors and a gnash of cruel bon-mots, lives to sew another day. What attracts me to Project Runway, aside from the clever setting and fashionable clothing, are the characters. Like fiction writers, the producers of Project Runway carefully blend their characters for maximum conflict and easy character tags. There’s the chilly Brit (who’s from South Africa, but since she’s got that Carnaby Street vibe, who cares?), the brutally honest black woman (who … [Read more...]

Escape Therapy for House Box Syndrome

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My inlaws are leaving town tomorrow, meandering off for parts undiscovered. I have pretty awesome inlaws, so you won't hear me rejoicing about their leaving (and I'm not just saying that because they might happen upon this blog post someday!). They love to travel, and so do I. This spring I'll take the kids to an amusement park; I'm heading to a writers' conference this summer; and we're already planning a big family vacation for November. What I really should be doing, however, is making … [Read more...]

More Musings on Hooks

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I was going to post another analysis of the Storytelling Magic of Project Runway, but that can wait for another day. This discussion on book openers has me, erm, hooked. Writers of fiction are pretty familiar with the term hook. Sol Stein calls it the moment when the story’s engine gets started. It’s a good analogy: the hook is going to reel the reader in so the author can take them along for the ride. Therese already highlighted the main components to a good hook in her blog entry … [Read more...]

Beginnings

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This past week I've been busy judging an "opening chapters" writing contest. I enjoy judging for several reasons--not least of which is reading new authors and later learning whether my opinion of talent is reflected in the listing of finalists (gratifying in its own way). It's also an opportunity on a craft level to recognize what works and what doesn't. Without naming names or divulging plot specifics, I'd like to talk about how the openings of the entries I've read this year are working … [Read more...]

Lessons from the Master

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There’s a reason why Bernard Cornwell is one of the best writers of historical fiction around. With 37 novels to his credit, including the popular Sharp series, it’s fair to say he knows a thing or two about how to craft a novel. His books are scrupulously accurate and insanely readable. When I pick one up, I make sure my schedule will be pretty light for the next few days, ‘cause I’m not gonna to be able to put it down. His latest novel, THE LAST KINGDOM, is set in 866 AD England, at the … [Read more...]