There comes a time in many stories when a character must deliver needed information via dialogue. It’s called expositional dialogue—a conversation with a whole lot of facts or explaining going on. It provides the back story and details necessary to understand for the story. Trouble is, after not too long these dialogue exchanges […]
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Practical
I was just talking with a lovely, talented author about a novel she’s working on. She’s having doubts and we were brainstorming how the story could unfold. I started suggesting solutions, rattling them off…..as I tend to do. And she laughed and said, “But this is so practical.” “Well, yes. I am practical. Sometimes solutions […]
Read the rest of this entry »Quick Take: Get into your body
Our minds are crowded little places and we too often sit at our computers our breaths shallow and shoulders riding high. Or, after hours spent alone in your head it feels like an echo chamber. Yet your inner knowing is connected to your heart beat, your breath, your bones. The more you write from your […]
Read the rest of this entry »Characters We’ve Never Met Before
Fiction readers want to meet story people that they cannot meet in the ordinary world. They also want these people to possess complicated world views and unexpected moral codes. The cast members of Mario Puzo’s The Godfather are splendid examples of this. It’s one of the first novels that depicted mafia families in a sympathetic […]
Read the rest of this entry »Writing is Hard
Time spent focusing on art is a privilege and a gift. The writing doesn’t make me happy, but it makes me happier, and it makes everything else easier to take. Stephen Elliot, from an essay first published in Tin House If you’re a writer you know that writing can be the best fun you’ll […]
Read the rest of this entry »Resonance
Writing that, because of its elegance or verve, commands not only attention but a place in the reader’s memory. Writing that, because of its unique approach to subject matter, brings an emotional melding with the reader. Resonance is responsiveness. Resonance is communion. Resonance brings a writer/reader atonement—a harmony intellectually, or emotionally, or both. Peter Jacobi […]
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