Note: I’m swamped with my own rewrite! So here’s a throw-back-Thursday post from last year. The Power of A Rewrite Q: Dear Therapist, I hear that novels are not written they are rewritten. But I edit as I write. Is that considered rewriting?, all I feel I need is a final polish. Why should I spend time with a rewrite? What do I gain? A: I love this topic. To rewrite or not to rewrite… that is the question. Let’s just say up front, everyone has a different writing process. Fast, slow, edit-as-you-go, write and rewrite. Early risers, late nighters. A thousand words a day. Five thousand words a day. Writers come in all shapes and mind-sets. Some writers plot to the minute detail. Others have a loose idea of […]
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Craft: The Golden Rule of Fiction
Still in a traveling frenzy… off to see my Grandma for her 99th birthday… so I asked author and writing coach Randy Ingermanson if I could share a post from his Advance Writing E-Zine. He said Yes and offers us a good take on characterization. Here’s Randy: About twenty years ago, I was accepted into a small mentoring group led by Sol Stein, a famous novelist, playwright, publisher, and writing teacher. It was a great group and I enjoyed hanging out with so many talented novelists. Sol had a recent book out, THE BEST REVENGE, and most of us in the group bought a copy. Sol, knowing that I’m a physicist, autographed mine as follows: “Physics = facts; Fiction = truth” I’ve often thought of that over the years. A […]
Read the RestFairytales: Someone Needs to Be Rescued
Fairytales: Someone Needs To Be Rescued A good story is about a journey. A great story is about a journey that leads to overcoming. Finding hope. True love. Destiny. Fairytales masterfully use the elements of despair and hopelessness to drive the hero and heroine toward change. All is dark in fairytale world, usually manipulated by some supernatural, evil force, to confine goodness. To constrain voices of truth and love. To kill and destroy. Hum… won’t that preach? But we don’t want to preach in stories. We want to show. Typically, but not always, the heroine is the character in the most trouble. The one who needs to be rescued. Though on occasion, the hero can be a bit of a rapscallion and get himself in trouble. Beauty and the Beast […]
Read the RestA Plot Litmus Test
It’s been a crazy week for me. Preparing to go out of town to speak, spending a few days with friends and my hubster in NY, catching up on details and promises made that need to be kept. Then yesterday when I should’ve been working on a blog about fairytales, I was fighting with computer problems. A PDF process got caught in a loop and it looped and looped and looped, devouring all of my system memory. I aged a year just waiting for the Finder window to open. 😉 Shout out to my friend Federico for fixing the problem. So, I’m punting today with a different kind of Book Therapist blog. I was having lunch with friend Debbie Macomber, Roxanne St. Claire and Martha Powers (Carla Darcy if you […]
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