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by Darcy Pattison Q: How do you go deeper into a character’s voice? A. I wonder if this question is about the character’s voice or about characterization in general. When a critiquer says you need to go deeper into a character’s voice, it could be either. Characterization If characterization is the problem, there are a [...]
by Darcy Pattison The only real readers are flashlight readers. Real writers take risks. Do villains really have to be politically correct? Libraries are learning to cater to digital natives.
by Darcy Pattison Last week, I made a few comments about backstory, but I wanted to spend more time on it. Impact of Reading SFF Many of my thoughts about backstory are shaped by the needs of fantasy and science fiction writing (sff) where the writer creates a world, complete with complex histories and magical [...]
by Darcy Pattison Voice. It’s a confusing, complicated topic. Do you have questions you want discussed, dissected, batted around? I don’t always have answers, but I like thinking about the nuances of voice. Please post Voice questions or Revision questions here, or email me privately at darcy at darcypattison dot com. I’ll try to research [...]
by Darcy Pattison Does point of view affect voice? Yes. The current trend is to encourage first person point of view for young adult novels, and sometimes, I think this adversely affects the voice. The default for many years for novels was third-person point of view; you only when to first person when the attitude/personality [...]
I seem to be thinking a lot about critiques these days, probably because I’m getting critiques from a couple different sources. The Strengths and Weaknesses of a Critiquers In critique groups, I find that writers/readers have different styles of critiquing. Grammar Witches: This person always finds the punctuation, spelling, and grammar mistakes; I’m grateful for [...]
by Darcy Pattison Early drafts of novels often open with an exciting situation only to devolve into a long explanation of back story. Donald Maass, in his Writing the Breakout Novel and the Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook, says to put back story somewhere after page 100. Yes, everyone wants to argue with this, saying [...]
Kirby Larson, author of Newbery Honor book, HATTIE BIG SKY, says, “I didn’t know how to revise until. . .
by Darcy Pattison The Shrunken Manuscript exercise that I devised for my Novel Revision retreat is gaining interest as people try it. It is advocated by Kirby Larson, author of the Newbery Honor book, Hattie Big Sky, And now, Newbery Honor winner, Cynthia Lord has tried the Shrunken Manuscript exercise and offers a picture (scroll [...]
One question that often arises is, “Can you revise for voice?” Yes. First Revision of 19 Girls and Me For example, in an early draft of Nineteen Girls and Me, I revised for an editor and sent him a version that started like this: When John Hercules Po started kindergarten in Room 9B, it was [...]
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