[perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]My aim is to agitate and disturb people. I’m not selling bread. – Miguel de Unamuno.[/perfectpullquote]
WRITING
- Do your settings contain an emotional value? | WRITERS HELPING WRITERS
Do your settings contain an emotional value? | As writers, we try to draw readers fully into each scene. Not only do we want them to picture what’s happening, we want them to feel as if they are sharing the POV (point of view) character’s experience.
- Creating believable characters: 8 Tactics | NOW NOVEL
Creating believable characters: 8 Tactics Believable characters are the lifeblood of great stories. Get inspired and start creating characters readers don’t want to part with using these 8 tactics.
Writing The Intimate Character
- How to spark your story with an inciting incident| THE WRITE PRACTICE
How to spark your story with an inciting incident| If you are planning on writing a novel in thirty days this NaNoWriMo, or if you are taking a year to write your novel, there is something you need to consider besides a basic plot structure. You need to determine your Inciting Incident.
- How to reveal setting in your book or screenplay | PAT VERDUCCI
How to reveal setting in your book or screenplay | When I was in film school, one of the most difficult things for me was learning how to describe the setting in my screenplays. The first time I turned in a draft of my script, my professor basically marked all the pages in bold red pen with the capital letters SIFYN.
A Writer’s Guide To Active Setting
- Write like Stephen King: How to create scary monsters | WRITER’S DIGEST
Monsters are more than just things that bite. What do they represent? What makes them scary beyond the physical threat—if there’s a physical threat at all?
- 13 Reasons authors are mistaken for serial killers | KRISTEN LAMB’S BLOG
Here is a handy list of ways we writers are often mistaken for serial killers.
- Writing fiction with a filmmaker’s eye | LIVE WRITE THRIVE
We’re now going to spend quite a few weeks looking at the purview of filmmakers. Why? Because there is so much more to “shooting” a story than the choice of camera shot.
+ Books on Writing:
- How to write dazzling dialogue
- Writing success: Your book from start to finish to publication
- Outlining your novel
- Writing deep point of view
- The art of memoir
- Reading like a Writer
- Rock your revisions
- The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide To Character Expression
SCREENWRITING
- Comedy acting advice… Not that anyone asked me | KEN LEVINE
The best comic actors know they have to trust the material and not push it. I can always see an actor working, winding up to deliver a punch line. As opposed to actors who are just naturally funny.
- Screenwriter/Producer David Paterson on adapting novels into scripts | LA SCREENWRITER
In this episode of the podcast I talk with screenwriter and producer David Paterson about adapting novels and plays into screenplays. His latest film, The Great Gilly Hopkins, is an adaptation of the novel by the same name.
- An opening scene is the hero your screenplay deserves | SCRIPT MAG
In the competitive world of screenwriting (and filmmaking) where industry readers judge your script in the first few pages, openings are a vital part of a successful screenplay and film.
- 6 Writing exercises you can do in sixty seconds or less | LA SCREENWRITER
Time – It is the most feared enemy of the writer. If time was not an issue, many of us would have churned out thousands of scripts and novels by now. Time keeps us from regular writing habits. It suffocates the moments we actually do spend writing. And perhaps most importantly, it assures that we never ever actually practice our craft.
- Is it useful to read a bad script to see what not to do? | GO INTO THE STORY
I tend to focus my ‘preaching’ on good movie scripts as reading material, however bad scripts can be every bit as educational in their own way.
+Books on Screenwriting:
- Super Structure: The key to unleashing the power of story
- Screenplay: The foundations of screenwriting
- Essentials of screenwriting
- Screenwriting: The sequence approach
- 33 Ways to sell your screenplay
- The eight characters of comedy
SELF-PUBLISHING
- Creative visualization for writers: Nina Amir Interview | THE BOOK DESIGNER
Today I’m interviewing my friend and colleague, Nina Amir, of NinaAmir.com. Nina is a bestselling hybrid author, an award winning blogger and Certified High Performance Coach.
- How to get your content shared by famous authors with book giveaways | CREATIVINDIE
This week I put up a new giveaway, and got Lauren Kate (author of Fallen) to share it with her 222,625 followers (on Facebook, she also shared on Twitter), which is pretty amazing.
- Book sales fall for self publishing authors | JUST PUBLISHING
Sales of self-published ebooks, in particular, have dropped suddenly and alarmingly. But Why?
- How to network effectively (even if you hate networking) | JANE FRIEDMAN
If you’re anything like me, a small part of you (or let’s be real, a large part) hates networking situations with a passion, especially forced networking situations.
+Books on Self-publishing: