by David Colin Carr | Jul 24, 2013 | Uncategorized, Writing
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...
by David Colin Carr | Jul 16, 2013 | Uncategorized, Writing
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...
by David Colin Carr | Jul 1, 2013 | Uncategorized, Writing
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...
by David Colin Carr | Jun 25, 2013 | Editing, Uncategorized, Writing
After nine years in my house, I finally met my backyard neighbor (though for all those years I knew her dog’s name was Annie) because the fence that kept us invisible to each other needed to be replaced. As she went bounding up my steep yard she announced she was 92,...
by David Colin Carr | Jun 18, 2013 | Uncategorized, Writing
I’ve had some 60 rejections of the one fiction piece I’ve submitted to agents, even agents with whom I have some collegial relationship. The most memorable rejection is the first, not because it was the first, but because it was a xerox of a xerox of a xerox of a...
by David Colin Carr | Jun 4, 2013 | Editing, Uncategorized, Writing
Last week I wrote about the editor’s nightmare of receiving a manuscript that needs to be reformatted before it can be edited. Today we’ll look at the dream: Guidelines for preparing your manuscript so your editor doesn’t have to hack her/his way through your...