by Stephanie Morrill | Feb 21, 2011 | Uncategorized
A writer e-mailed me to ask, “When it comes to your first book, I’m not sure what kind of mindset to have. Do you take the approach that most first books aren’t published, so it’s a weak idea and it might suck, but at least I wrote it? Or hold...
by Stephanie Morrill | Feb 18, 2011 | Uncategorized
Wednesday we talked about elements of a good first chapter, and we’ve talked on here before about what makes a good first line of a novel. Let’s get more detailed and talk about your opening paragraph.I can’t stress enough how critical the opening...
by Stephanie Morrill | Feb 16, 2011 | Uncategorized
I remember the first time I fell in love with a book from page one. It was Sarah Dessen’s This Lullaby. I had discovered I wanted to be a Young Adult writer, so I went to Borders to see what was going on in YA fiction. They had quite a few by this Sarah Dessen...
by Stephanie Morrill | Feb 11, 2011 | Uncategorized
We’ve spent some time now talking about brainstorming our ideas, our main character, our secondary characters, our antagonist, and our setting. (For a complete list of the posts in the writing process series, click here.)Almost all of this (for me, anyway) falls...
by Stephanie Morrill | Feb 9, 2011 | Uncategorized
After going through my out-of-control inbox, I discovered several of you had asked me questions about antagonists … and I completely spaced answering them. I’m so sorry!One writer e-mailed me and asked, “My protagonist and antagonist basically have...
by Stephanie Morrill | Feb 4, 2011 | Uncategorized
Now that we have some basic bones for our story worked out, and idea of who our main and secondary characters are let’s talk about where our story takes place – the setting.Sometimes a certain plot dictates a setting. Like if you’re writing about a...
by Stephanie Morrill | Jan 28, 2011 | Uncategorized
Your main character has a goal, and now you need to find someone who’s going to keep them from achieving that goal. An antagonist, a villain.Now, it’s possible that all your secondary characters will play the antagonist role at some point in the story....
by Stephanie Morrill | Jan 26, 2011 | Uncategorized
It occurred to me that I should be more specific about what part of the novel writing process we’re in right now.We’ve spent the last couple weeks talking about our main character. This is a part of the process I refer to as composting. Which is a term I...
by Stephanie Morrill | Jan 24, 2011 | Uncategorized
Real quick, today’s the last day to enter the writing prompt contest. (Click here if you’re not sure what I’m talking about.) When you send me your 100 words, I always send you an e-mail letting you know I received your entry. If you’ve...
by Stephanie Morrill | Jan 21, 2011 | Uncategorized
For those who missed it yesterday – since I normally don’t post on Thursdays – we had a guest. The lovely and generous Christine Sunderland shared with us a bit about her writing process. She’s also giving away free copies of her books, so...
