by Stephanie Morrill | Mar 2, 2010 | Uncategorized
The time thing's a great point, Stephanie. Certainly not one I considered when I was 15 and trying to find a publisher. =) And not that I stayed up late and slept till noon as a teen, but there were always other pulls on my time. I was kinda amazed when I got to...
by Stephanie Morrill | Mar 2, 2010 | Uncategorized
This is a question that came up in the discussion of another post: Can you get published when you’re a teenager? It’s something that I wondered about—that I hoped for—as a teen, so I’m guessing there are a few of you out there who’d like to know the answer.Here’s why...
by Stephanie Morrill | Feb 25, 2010 | Uncategorized
I actually groaned when I saw this was my chosen topic to write about today.The thing is, middles are insanely tough to write. Which is why for the first few years of my career, I wrote lots and lots of beginnings. Part of the problem is poorly fleshed out ideas, and...
by Stephanie Morrill | Feb 23, 2010 | Uncategorized
A reader e-mailed to ask: I have been writing this one story for a very long time. I wrote it out once and then tweaked it to death, so I started again, and now it’s under tweaked and depresses me to read, but I don’t want to risk killing it again. How do I find...
by Stephanie Morrill | Feb 18, 2010 | Uncategorized
Okay, this is a really big topic and there’s lots of ways to go about it, so I thought I’d just start with some basics for now.Here are a few things that make a good opening:1. Writing a good first line, which we talked about last Thursday.2. You should almost always...
by Stephanie Morrill | Feb 16, 2010 | Uncategorized
A reader e-mailed me to ask: Sometimes I find myself borrowing from plots of other books. Is that bad? How do I stop that?In certain situations, yes, it’s bad. Plagiarizing is taken super seriously and can totally destroy careers. So, if you’re writing as a career,...
by Stephanie Morrill | Feb 11, 2010 | Uncategorized
Next week we’ll talk about writing a good opening, but a good opening starts with a good opening line.The first line of your book is insanely important. Like, I cannot stress to you how important it is. It sets the attitude of the narrator, the mood of the scene,...
by Stephanie Morrill | Feb 9, 2010 | Uncategorized
A reader e-mailed me to ask: I write part of a story, then lose interest or stop liking it. What do I do about that?Yeah, this is a tough one. Particularly if you haven’t already sold the manuscript, so there’s no deadline looming before you, pushing you to...
by Stephanie Morrill | Feb 4, 2010 | Uncategorized
I talked last Thursday about what makes a book good. One of the first things I listed was a main character I can root for. Let’s talk a bit about what that does and does not mean.There are two types of main characters:An ordinary character to whom the extraordinary...
by Stephanie Morrill | Feb 2, 2010 | Uncategorized
A reader asked me: Do you have tips for me to concentrate, stay on task, and actually finish a story?Why, yes I do.There are lots of ways I could answer this – pick a subject you’re passionate about, develop a plot with plenty of complications, create...
