For years I’ve wondered how I’ll ever be considered a serious author if I can only complete short stories. I belong to several writing groups where most members proudly mention how many books they’ve published, or how close they are to finishing their second book, or their third, or their ninth. Wisely I don’t join the…
There’s nothing like writing to expose all your personality quirks. And by quirks, of course, I mean all those precious little neuroses, psychoses, proclivities, and the flat-out whack-a-doodleness that make you… you. Or is that just me? I’m going to assume I’m in good company. Humor me. I’m a bit of a perfectionist. (I’ll just…
Random Stuff: How cool is it that one of RMFW’s critique groups publishes short story anthologies? The members of the Speculative Fiction Critique Group help each other with improving their craft, but are also learning about the whole publishing process. The latest anthology is called “Second Law” (published in December 2021). Ralph Beckett, who writes…
A passion for word games and puzzles can serve as a bridge to creative and expository writing. Letters and sounds are the building-blocks of words. Words form sentences and sentences convey meaning to inform readers, evoke emotions, and stimulate thinking. Working crosswords, playing scrabble, and completing word search exercises can pay dividends. Even the taking…
Q: What contributes conflict to your story and characters? A #1: TENSION with a slice of underlying tension The Breakout Novelist by Donald #Maass is full of hints and writing exercises that can strip down a conversation to its basics in order to produce great tension. Maass teaches, “…it is not information itself that nails…