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It was 110 degrees in Phoenix this weekend for a Novel Revision Retreat. If you’ve never attended one, I’ll try to give you an idea of what it’s like. First, it’s limited to only 20 people at a time, purposely kept small so there’s lots of interaction. Before the retreat, they are divided into groups [...]
Novel Diagnosis Series Introduction Characters Dialogue Scenes Voice VoiceRevisited Plot It’s been interesting trying to find ways to easily diagnose novel problems with short, easy-to-do activities. I’ve written lots here about Voice, but I’ve never thought about a short activity to diagnose how well you’re doing. So, this is a proposal and I’d be interested [...]
Rain, rain, go away. Come again another day.
Novel Diagnosis Series Introduction Characters Dialogue Scenes Voice VoiceRevisited Plot How are you doing on the novel diagnosis? Finding that you have strengths you didn’t know? Finding areas on which to concentrate as you revise? Novel Diagnosis-Dialogue Dialogue, people talking, is a thing of the ear. There are mechanical things that often need revising, such [...]
Sara Holmes blog talks about the work of an artist named Claudia Tennyson, who repairs cracked pottery by gilding the cracks. Instead, of letting the pottery go to the trash heap, artists deliberately emphasis the cracks by filling them with gold: the repairs increase the value. Sara suggests that it’s an apt metaphor: when we [...]
Novel Diagnosis Series Introduction Characters Dialogue Scenes Voice VoiceRevisited Plot Please read the Novel Diagnosis–Introduction about competencies. Long stories, like novels, are usually written in scenes. A scene is a contained unit of action that has a beginning, middle and end and usually builds toward a mini-climax. This implies that a character has a goal [...]
Novel Diagnosis Series Introduction Characters Dialogue Scenes Voice VoiceRevisited Plot Please read the Novel Diagnosis–Introduction about competencies. Characters are the lifeblood of a novel. Populating your novel with characters who have a strong inner life, a unique voice and a life full of conflict is important. Self-Diagnosis–Characters Time required: about 5-10 minutes. Look only at [...]
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by Darcy Pattison How would you start to create a voice for a character? For example, if you had a lawyer, you could list the cliched attributes of a lawyer’s voice: overuse of passive voice legalese jargon overuse of qualifying prepositional phrases long, complex-compound sentences For example, a cliched lawyer might say, “Johnny was desirous [...]
Decisions I’m trying to decide what to do next. Revise a novel or start a new one. Yes, I do have to write a first draft sometimes, or I won’t have anything to revise! Here are some things I’m considering: Past reactions to my mss submissions. I have an animal fantasy novel, PAS, that I [...]
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