In writing class the other night we got into an interesting discussion. According to my teacher (an agented, traditionally-published writer), the biggest reason readers put down a book is…
I’ve already done a list of the opening lines from all my favorite books, but now I’m going to do a list of some of my favorite opening lines. (There’s a difference, though some overlap.) I’m also going to avoid the classics, since those lists are already all over the internet already. Opening lines are so […]
There are a lot of things that go into writing a novel. Today I’m going to focus on an important one–point of view. One of the first decisions you need to make when starting a novel is: who is telling this story?
Time for a look at another brilliant example of writer voice! This week I’m picking an unusual one…
So I’m taking a writing class this summer at this fine institution. (It’s awesome. I highly recommend it.) The structure of the class is that each week, some students hand in writing submissions, and the next week you’re “workshopped”, meaning everyone tells you what they thought. When it was my turn, the teacher of the […]
I’ve written about voice in YA contemporary (twice), I’ve written about voice in YA historical, and today I’m going to talk about the voice of a writer who’s not YA at all. Because while it’s absolutely crucial as a writer to read within our genres, there is a tremendous amount to be learned from other genres, […]
So last week I said I wanted to talk about something super-important in novel-writing: voice. This week I’m talking about the same thing, and showing an example of a completely different kind of voice. In YA, you can sometimes read several books in a row all with similar voices. That’s why I love The Spectacular Now–the […]
I almost didn’t write this post, because the writing tip is quite an obvious one. But regardless of how many times we hear it, I still see the passive voice cropping up in otherwise well-written manuscripts–including my own. So let’s go over this!
So I’ve written a lot about what we can learn from the masterful writers who’ve come before us, focusing mainly on the first 250 words of the manuscript. Today I want to focus on something else: voice.
Editing: an essential part of the writing process. From what I can tell, some people love it, and others love to hate it. I personally love editing my own work, taking that raw material and polishing it to a gleaming shine. But like any part of the writing process, editing comes with countless frustrations. There’s […]
