by Stephanie Morrill | Apr 6, 2020 | Beginning Writer's Guide To Finishing A Novel, Characters
One story element that often feels mushy in the middle of our books is our cast of characters. We sometimes are so focused on getting our main character down the river, we forget about the lives of all those side characters we set up in act one. Or we can have the...
by Shannon Dittemore | Apr 3, 2020 | Encouragement, Productivity, Writing, Writing Life
This is a strange season, is it not? We’re all holed up in our houses. Many of us are bored. Most of us are restless. And yet, it can be very challenging to focus long enough to get much writing done. If you weren’t doing your schooling at home prior to...
by Jill Williamson | Apr 1, 2020 | Book Club Posts, Characters, Go Teen Writers Book Club, Lists for Writers
Today on the Go Teen Writers Book Club, we’re discussing the chapter titled “Attitude,” which was chapter twenty-two of Story Trumps Structure by Steven James. Chapter Recap:I found it strange that this chapter was so close to the end of the book. I suppose it was so...
by Stephanie Morrill | Mar 30, 2020 | Beginning Writer's Guide To Finishing A Novel, Story Middles, Story Structure, Writing
I took a break from the series last week because it seemed right to acknowledge that all of us have likely seen some kind of shift—great or small—in our lives with the pandemic going on. If you didn’t see Shan’s post on Friday, You Can Do The Next Thing,...
by Shannon Dittemore | Mar 27, 2020 | Encouragement, Goals, Writing, Writing Life
There’s an old poem with no title and an unknown author, and it opens like this: From an old English parsonage down by the seaThere came in the twilight a message to me;Its quaint Saxon legend, deeply engraven,Hath, it seems to me, teaching from Heaven.And on...
by Jill Williamson | Mar 25, 2020 | Guest Posts, Learning from Other Authors, Story Endings, Writing, Writing a Series
Today we have a guest post from former Go Teen Writer girl Taylor Bennett. The final book in Taylor’s Tradewinds series just released this month, and it’s currently free on Kindle Unlimited! If you’re new to Taylor and her books, you can start at the beginning of the...
by Stephanie Morrill | Mar 23, 2020 | Writing Life
Writers, it’s only been a week since my last post, but I feel like I’m writing to you from a different planet. Or like I got plopped down in an apocalyptic novel of Jill Williamson’s, and I don’t like it that much in here. (Love you AND your...
by Shannon Dittemore | Mar 20, 2020 | Writing Exercise
In the spirit of trying-new-things-while-in-isolation, I decided to put together a video for you all! It’s eight minutes long, tells a fun CS Lewis story, and leaves you with one of my favorite writing exercises. Enjoy! And please play along. I’ll feel...
by Jill Williamson | Mar 18, 2020 | Antagonists, Book Club Posts, Characters, Go Teen Writers Book Club
Today on the Go Teen Writers Book Club, we’re discussing “Status,” chapter twenty-one of Story Trumps Structure by Steven James. Chapter Recap: The subtitle of this chapter is: “What no one is teaching you about characterization” and it’s so true! I never, ever...
by Stephanie Morrill | Mar 16, 2020 | Beginning Writer's Guide To Finishing A Novel, Story Middles
Last week, I shared the analogy of your story being like a canoe ride down a river. In the opening of your story, your character is paddling down a river they’ve traveled for a long time. This is their normal world. Out of the blue, they’re surprised by a...
