by Susanne | Oct 6, 2017 | Editing, word use, Writing craft
I try to be tolerant and not too pedantic when it comes to the way people use the English language. Colloquialisms are totally fine, weird punctuation, etc.—especially in quickly dashed off social media posts. But when I see something repeated misused in mainstream...
by Susanne | Sep 24, 2017 | Publishing business, Writing craft, Writing life
So, you have a finished manuscript. You’ve polished and prodded and written and rewritten and finally you think it’s ready to find a home in the world. Congratulations! Not everyone can do that, sustain a story over 80k or more words so that there’s...
by Susanne | Sep 20, 2017 | Writing craft, Writing life
I’ve often thought about writing out random scenes, things that I see my characters doing, or events I know my characters will interact with at some point in the story. It’s pretty easy, in fact, to make a list of those scenes, and soon it becomes obvious...
by Susanne | Sep 17, 2017 | Writing craft, Writing life
I’m circling around the new WIP. I’ve populated Scrivener with index cards of random scenes, and written one of them (sort of). Still not sure where the story begins, although I think I know where it ends. This one’s conflict is tough, because...
by Susanne | Sep 15, 2017 | Editing, Writing craft, Writing life
If you’re an aspiring writer and you’ve explored options for working with a developmental editor, or a story coach, or any of the other titles people give someone who is going to help you scrub and polish and tweak and twist your story into decent shape,...
by Susanne | Sep 12, 2017 | Writing craft
In my constant reading about and studying the craft of writing, I had an epiphany sometime over the summer. I can’t remember where it occurred, what I was reading, but I finally understood the difference between STORY and PLOT. STORY: Essentially, what happens,...
