The following conversation actually took place: Coworker: “How can I submit only the first chapter of my manuscript to a contest? The good stuff doesn’t start until chapter three—maybe four.” Me: “Your story doesn’t begin where you think it begins.” CW: “Sure as the day you were born, it starts in chapter one.” Me: “As…
Author: Rainey Hall
Plot Puppets, Doppelgängers, Villains and let’s not forget, Revulsion and Disgust
Yeah, my secret’s out of the bag, I can’t really think of anything to blog about this month using my own words, especially with humor. So, I’ve taken parts of blogs and an article from other writers. #DONALD #MAASS (Taken from): http://maassagency.com/ Acting in ways honest and human is what psychologists—and literary critics—call being authentic. Realism…
To Plot or Not to Plot
Pants or Plot? This is THE question. A confession: I am a pantser, sometimes spelled pantzer. No, nothing like a panzer. I write by the seat of my pants, plot on the fly and rake up scattered thoughts of villains, protagonists, settings and an occasional animal. When finished with a first draft of an historical…
A Writer’s Guide to Infinite Ideas
Where do I find them? Ideas, that is. Each time I hear an author asked “Where do you get your ideas?” I cringe. As Stephen King says on his website: “I get my ideas from everywhere. But what all of my ideas boil down to is seeing maybe one thing, but in a lot of…
Words Matter
As a mere child, I’d cut letters from words to make more words. For example, from the title of this blog, Words Matter: matt, rat, as, word, sword, words, matter, toward, wad, or, more, war, roar, stat, at, dot, draw, date, mate, rate, ate, watt, smart. Then, I’d form silly sentences: Draw Matt as a…