Challenge for Writers: Conveying Depression, Angst, and Psychosis: Reviews of Incendiary, The Things They Carried, and The Beautiful Bones –September 2, 2013
I’ve written in the past about clients whose description of difficult events can retraumatize a reader. It’s wonderful to be able to transmit emotional experience – this is one of the intentions I ask my clients to clarify – but I’m not sure any reader would benefit...
Dances with Writers: Vision, Opinion, Knowledge, Wisdom, and Savvy #1 –August 26, 2013
PLEASE DON’T MISS THE END OF THE BLOG WHERE I ASK FOR YOUR OPINION. I suspect this is going to be the first in a series of articles based on the various dances I do as I work with different clients. I don’t mean dances pejoratively. Each writer is distinctive in...
What Writers Can Learn from Barbara Kingsolver’s Imagination –August 19, 2013
I’ve written before about the importance of imagination for writers. The fundamental importance. I was delighted by Barbara Kingsolver’s as I read her new Flight Behavior. (As I’m writing this, two orange butterflies – not monarchs, but fritillaries which have a...
Inference Makes Writing More Compelling –August 12, 2013
I'll start the same way I began my last post: I’ve been working with a client on an extraordinary memoir that starts in an idyllic Mennonite farm family in Kentucky and tunnels into a violent marriage that engenders her rage with God. What I heard myself repeating in...
Should You Call Your Opus a Memoir or a Novel? August 5, 2013
I’ve been working with a client on an extraordinary memoir that starts in an idyllic Mennonite farm family in Kentucky and tunnels into a violent marriage that engenders her rage with God. As we were talking over the first draft, I suggested altering some scenes. “But...
Feedback from Editor to Writer #1
I think it might be interesting to know what my feedback on a piece of writing might look like. As I work up an estimate, I often make notes about the patterns I see that will need to be revised. These might function as a guide for the writer to edit their piece...
Writer’s Nightmare #1: Being Stuck
I have a client who developed an outline for her novel a couple of months ago. It has a lot of single action short chapters. Today I received an email from her: I’m stuck. I was writing three chapters a week before I went home for vacation. And I want to set a goal of...
Writers: Don’t Count Words, Make Every Word Count
To make every word count, weigh its capacity to either carry the story forward or invoke a setting or atmosphere. Note the word “invoke.” Rather than telling your reader what to feel, trust her to feel what is evoked out of her own experience. It is possible she’ll...
Freelance Editors and Acquisition Editors: Writers should know the difference
Unfortunately, the term editors is often assumed by writers with manuscripts to sell (as well as by the organizers of writers conferences) to mean acquisition editors. These are a writer’s first contact with a publishing house. Their job is to screen submissions for...
Writer’s Guide To How People Learn
CONTEXT (why I’m writing, or what situation I want to bring attention to): I’m riffing off a blog piece by my colleague Joel Friedlander, TheBookDesigner, on (TOPIC:) learning sequence. People’s minds tend to process information in sequential patterns, so writers need...