Story Tension

How do you create tension in a story? I’ve been talking with a friend and his gut instinct is to withhold certain information, for example, the exact location of the scene.
Story Tension
In How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy, Orson Scott Card says that tension is created by withholding “what happens next.” You [...]

Rules for First Readers

What do you expect from your first readers of your novel or picture book?
Rules for First Readers

Encouragement. First and foremost, I want my first reader to encourage me to keep on working. That means the first reader needs to be aware that first drafts can be really, really, really bad. And they need [...]

Cell phone novels: Japan, Finland, Itlay, Switzerland, China

Have you heard the new craze about cell phone novels? They are spreading worldwide. Is the writing any different?
Cellphone Novels in Japan, Finland, Italy, Switzerland and China

Cell phone novels across the world:

Japan:
Switzerland
Finland, where there is the highest per capita use of cell phones
Italy
China

Cell phone novels for [...]

2008-9 Speaking schedule

I’m out the next two days speaking to teachers and writers. I’ve had a couple people ask, so I’ll post my schedule for the next year or so:
2008

June 5 Pine Bluff, AR, Delta Institute, teacher’s in-service
June 6 Arkansas Writing Conference, Little Rock, AR.

June 16 Western Arkansas Education Cooperative
September 19-21 AR-SCBWI Fall [...]

Backstory’s Emotional Weight

When we invent characters, we need to know all about them, including where they grew up, childhood fears & dreams and more. Where does this information go? Where do you put all this backstory?
Backstory’s Emotional Weight
Two friends, writing vastly different stories, are struggling with backstory. One is adding backstory to enrich [...]

Daphne Grab: Class of 2k8

This is part of a year-long series about those intrepid newcomers, The Class of 2k8. To help marketing efforts for debut novelists, these 28 novelists have banded together to create a group marketing effort.
Daphne Grab

Alive and Well in Prague, New York

Each time I start a rough draft I have this fantasy that if [...]