[perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] Everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. -Sylvia Plath. [/perfectpullquote]
WRITING
Scene Structure: Endings–Inevitable or Unpredictable?, Live Write Thrive | Tweet
It’s okay for readers to know what is going to happen (boy gets girl; Frodo destroys the ring), but they don’t know how. You want enough surprises and twists that the reader is thrilled, but you don’t want them throwing that book across the room upset that your ending makes no sense.
Related content:
Making time for writing? 7 Simple but powerful productivity tips, Write to Done | Tweet
Making time for writing? 7 Simple but powerful productivity tips, 
Do you ever sit down to write for a couple of hours, only to find yourself with only a paragraph or two to show for it?
Want to be a successful writer? Ten ways to go pro, Kristen Lamb’s Blog | Tweet
F
or some strange reason, whenever I rail about PAY THE WRITER there is this knee-jerk assumption we writers are foisting something fundamentally unwanted onto the unsuspecting public and if they read our stuff they’re doing us a favor. Untrue. People want good books.
Related content:
- 7 Tips to writing great dialogue, Pat Verducci | Tweet
Know your character. If you’re struggling with a character’s dialogue, it’s probably because you don’t know them well enough. Stop, flesh out this person. What do they they love? What do they hate? What do they fear?
Related content:
How to write dazzling dialogue
- If you use double negatives in your writing, you’re not incorrect, Writer’s Digest | Tweet
Do
uble negatives get a bad rap in the writing world—as generally, they should. We’ve all been taught to avoid phrases like “She didn’t like no one,” or “He never said nothing,” because they are unwieldy and confusing and in fact mean the opposite (“She likes everyone,” “He said something”) of what they appear to.
Related content:
The only grammar you’ll ever need
- How does your character stand?, The Write Practice | Tweet
How does your character stand?, 
Definition of posture: A position or attitude of the body or of bodily parts: A characteristic way of bearing one’s body, especially the trunk and head.
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- How your character’s failures can map a route to self-growth, Helping Writers Become Authors | Tweet
Failure is something no one looks forward to or wants to experience. It doesn’t feel good to fight for something and fail.
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The negative trait thesaurus: A writer’s guide to character flaws
- First pages of best-selling novels: almost a bride, Live Write Thrive | Tweet
A writer might write well and have some great plot and concept ideas, even wonderful characters and a compelling setting. But if his novel isn’t carefully structured and written to fit a specific genre aimed at a specific audience, it often fails to get traction when published.
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- High concept versus deep theme: are you reaching or digging?, Writer Unboxed | Tweet
It’s funny, but the deeper I delve into my characters’ truest aspirations, deepest fears, and innermost motivations, the more my supposed High Concepts seem to slip through my fingers.
Related content:
- What’s your characters driving force?, Writers in the storm | Tweet
Wh
en you’re writing a character, it’s important to know why she is the way she is. Knowing her backstory is important to achieving this end, and one of the most impactful pieces of a character’s backstory is her emotional wound.
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Creating characters
+ Related books:
- 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
- So-called screenwriting ‘Rules’, Going into the story | Tweet
Last Monday, I posted this about an occurrence that happens with irritating regularity in the online screenwriting universe: The contentious specter of so-called screenwriting ‘rules’.
- SCRIPT GODS MUST DIE: Screenplay Format – The Not So Sexy Science, Going into the story | Tweet
Format isn’t sexy. I’d recommend you study it only under special circumstances: Like you want to sell your script.
- Writing sentences, Go into the story | Tweet
Writing sentences. It’s perhaps the most fundamental aspect of what we do as writers. And though this tweet is more about writing prose, it makes a valuable point for screenwriters as well.
- How to get your screenplay solicited, Script Mag | Tweet
This is the thing. We hear all the time that “nobody” has time to read screenplays anymore. There’s just too many of them around. Most of them are no good, for whatever reason. So put like that, is it any *wonder* it’s so difficult to get read??
What is good writing?, John August | Tweet
It’s an all-craft episode as John and Craig discuss what they mean when they say good writing.
Related books:
- 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
- Playing the self publishing lottery game, Just Publishing Advice | Tweet
Book publishing has always been a gamble, so nothing is new.
- Why you should join all social media networks, Jane Friedman | Tweet
I think it’s fair to say that most of us are not looking to add more social media activity to our lives. In fact, we prefer to trim online activity or drop entire networks if possible.
Tips for successful audiobook production using ACX, SkipJack Publishing| Tweet
So you’ve written a book. You’re selling it in ebook and paperback, and you’ve been hearing that audio is an expanding market and you want in on it.
The architecture of the book page, The Book Designer | Tweet
Book pages, especially early in the design and construction of your book, are architectural in that they contain basic structural elements that need to be built on strong foundations, allow for ornamentation where appropriate, and pay attention to the execution of the book’s function of transmitting information from author to reader.
How much should writers pay to be published?, Terrible Minds | Tweet
The title to this post is Admiral Ackbar’s greatest fear: It is, indeed, a trap. Because the answer to this question is obvious: you shouldn’t pay anything to get published.
Related books:
- Self Publishing: My rules to staying alive and making money
- How I sold 80,000 books
- Write. Publish. Repeat: The no-luck-required guide to self-publishing success
- Createspace & Kindle Self Publishing Masterclass
- The Self-Publishing Road Map
