Rhythm and Time – Part 4: Make Your Characters Sing
Amy Rose Davis
You can read the rest of this series here: Part 1: Give Your Writing a Beat of Its Own Part 2: Add a Little Harmony with Adjectives Part 3: Dialogue…
Amy Rose Davis
Middles – Part 2: Propel Yourself Into the Middle
Two weeks ago, I started talking about mushy middles and why I think writers encounter them. Now that we’ve identified mushy middles as an issue, let’s look at some of…
Rhythm and Time – Part 3: Dialogue
You can read the rest of this series here: Part 1: Give Your Writing a Beat of Its Own Part 2: Add a Little Harmony with Adjectives It’s a good…
Middles – Part 1: Mushy Middle Syndrome
You can read the rest of the Story Structure series here: Part 1 – Story Structure: Beginnings Part 2 – Revisiting the Three-Act Structure Part 3 – In the Beginning……
Rhythm and Time – Part 2: Add a Little Harmony with Adjectives
Two weeks ago, I started my series on rhythm and time in writing by talking about verbs. I think verbs are the bass line for all writing, because if you…
Story Structure – Part 3: In the Beginning…
You can find parts one and two of this series here: Part 1: Story Structure: Beginnings Part 2: Story Structure: Revisiting the Three-Act Structure In the Beginning… There is perhaps…
Story Structure – Part 2: Revisiting the Three-Act Structure
A few weeks ago, I started my discussion of story structure with a post about inciting incidents and beginnings and where those first turning points should come in a story.…
Strengthen Your Voice
Rosalie Skinner posted a great article several weeks ago about what agents and editors hate to see in manuscripts. One of the things the agents mentioned was passive voice. Passive…
Story Structure – Part 1: Beginnings
Now that I’ve spent several weeks discussing protagonists, heroes, antagonists, and villains, let’s start putting those great characters to use. But first, there’s all that worldbuilding to be done—creatures to…
Cutting the Flab: Eliminate Extraneous Words
As a marketing writer and freelance copywriter, I spent several years trimming sentences and blurbs to fit in newspaper ads and on postcards, brochures, and other marketing collateral. Then I…
The “Villain” Spectrum: Creating a Layered Antagonist
I’m sure everyone remembers the scene in the first Shrek movie where Shrek tells Donkey that “ogres are like onions” because they have layers. Donkey wants to know why they…
Non-Human Antagonists
I’ve spent several weeks talking about heroes, antiheroes, and villains, and how to define them, so I think it’s time to apply the knowledge a little. But first, I want…