by Stephanie Morrill | Aug 24, 2020 | Beginning Writer's Guide To Finishing A Novel, Editing
As I talked about in my original post in this series about editing, I’ve found it’s more effective to start editing with big changes that need to be made (regardless of where they are in the story) rather than beginning in chapter one and working my way...
by Jill Williamson | Aug 21, 2020 | Description, Editing, First Drafts, Grow An Author, Writing
New writers often struggle to get the right words on the page and in the right place. This is a skill that simply takes practice to perfect. There are several different types of gaps that can appear in your writing. These are generally handled in the editing stage,...
by Jill Williamson | Aug 19, 2020 | Creativity, Encouragement, Guest Posts, Learning from Other Authors, Story Beginnings, Story Ideas, Writing
Do you worry that your stories might not be original enough to stand out to agents and editors? Are you afraid to retell that fairy tale you love so much, or to write about a certain setting, time period or type of character, because it feels like too many authors...
by Stephanie Morrill | Aug 17, 2020 | Beginning Writer's Guide To Finishing A Novel, Editing, Setting
When I’m doing a macro edit, the last big picture story element I work on is my setting. The setting for your story isn’t just, “modern day Kansas City,” or, “1920s Chicago,” or a fantasy world of your own creation. You might find...
by Shannon Dittemore | Aug 14, 2020 | Creativity, Reading, The Craft of Writing, Writing, Writing Life, Writing Voice
I have a thing for real life history that plays out like fiction. Lately, I’ve been reading up on Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames. Two men, one from the FBI and one from the CIA, who sold American secrets to the Russian and Soviet intelligence services during and...
by Jill Williamson | Aug 12, 2020 | Brainstorming, Plot, Story Structure, Writing
Last week I posted a video of how I go about writing a sequel. If you missed it, you can watch it here. Within that video, I talked about how I used the Seven-Point Story Structure popularized by Dan Wells in this video to plot my story. Lydia asked in the comments...
by Stephanie Morrill | Aug 10, 2020 | Beginning Writer's Guide To Finishing A Novel, Editing, Plot
After a couple weeks away from this series, I’m feeling a bit disoriented! If you are too, here are the last few posts: Editing Process Overview Fixing Character Issues Fixing Theme Issues Like I talked about in previous editing posts, all the story elements...
by Stephanie Morrill | Aug 7, 2020 | Guest Posts, Setting
Taylor Bennett is a dandelion-wishing, world-traveling lover of books, words, and stories. Based in the PNW, she dreams of seeing the world and writing stories set in unique locations. Although she dreams of traveling to many different places, her favorite destination...
by Jill Williamson | Aug 5, 2020 | First Drafts, Plot, Story Beginnings, Story Endings
I’ve recently dived into writing Hunger, book two in the Thirst Duology. I recorded a video of my process for writing a sequel for my Instagram TV channel and thought I’d share it all with you. So that is my process for writing a sequel. What’s...
by Stephanie Morrill | Aug 3, 2020 | Author Life, Genres
Hi, writers! I’m home again, but just barely, so one more post from the archives. When teen writers ask me about being published, one of the most common questions I get is about the idea of needing to pick one genre. They’ll say something like, “Is it true that...
