Drastic Revision in Search of Voice

When you revise your novel or story do you look at what you wrote before or start totally from scratch?
Revise Previous Text
Usually, I’ll work with the text that I already have written. The idea here is that I’m close, but it isn’t quite there yet. In this case, I’m refining the text and story as [...]

Joni Sensel

Guest blogger, Joni Sensel writes about cutting her story so much that two books became one. I read an ARC of this new book and loved it — the novel revisions worked!
Why Cut Out Important Parts of a Novel?

Originally I thought my new middle-grade adventure, THE FARWALKER’S QUEST, would be two books of a trilogy, [...]

How to Use Scenes to Plot

Criteria for choosing scenes to include in your novel:

A Washington Voice Retreat

Western Washington SCBWI Retreat: Voice
The retreat was great. There were about 40-45 people there and they were split into two groups. Group A came to me, while Group B went to Patti Gauch, then we swapped for the same presentation again. I sorta knew how Patti would approach voice (and I might have done many [...]

3 NaNoWriMo Tips to Make Revision Easier

NaNoWriMo is in full swing! That means over 50,000 writers are slugging out 50,000 words, working on the first draft of a novel, in the 30 days of November. But I’m thinking ahead to December when that first rough draft needs revision. Here are 3 things to keep in mind as you’re writing [...]