Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, Jan 15-21, 2017

January 24, 2017January 22, 2017 / Melanie Marttila / 1 Comment

And here it is, your informal writerly learnings for the week!

K.M. Weiland offers her insight into how to outline a series of bestselling books. Helping Writers Become Authors

Janice Hardy starts a two part series about finding your voice. First up: how to find your character’s voice. Fiction University

Are you revising? Then check out April Bradley’s tips on pacing and momentum. Writers Helping Writers

Dianna Gunn shares her experience with resistance: letting your story end at the end. DIYMFA

Sloan Tamar: five things psychology can teach writers. Writers Helping Writers

Dave King revisits the power of words. Writer Unboxed

Annie Neugebauer muses on the challenge of finding the balance between dreaming and working. Writer Unboxed

Writer Unboxed obtained permission to reprint this fabulous post by Christie Aschwanden: stop trying to be creative.

Jamie Raintree gives us a productive two-for this week: a different kind of writing productivity and the importance of knowing your priorities and sticking to them.

Jami Gold: what if I can’t find beta readers?

Kristen Lamb says, never tell me the odds—how to get your head right for success.

Jenny Hansen shares Maya Angelou’s writerly wisdom on Writers in the Storm.

A moment of tangency. The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows (apparently soon to be out in book form!). This guy’s a poet.

Charles Chu looks back at Frank Herbert and his definition of success. You don’t write for fame and fortune. You write so you can have more time to write. Medium

Fiona Macdonald peeks at the racy side of Jane Austin. BBC

Punny. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog … after a few tries 😉

Alexandra Alter reports on an unfinished Mark Twain fairytale that will soon see the light of day. The New York Times

Swapna Krishna looks at the time travel in Timeless. Is it possible? Tor.com

Spencer Kornhaber interviews Brit Marling about The OA and the dark side of science. As I said when I posted this to FB, I enjoyed the series … until the last episode. Though I called it, that couldn’t compensate for the deep dissatisfaction I felt in the wake of the final episode. Still, it’s nice to find out more about what inspired the series. The Atlantic

Looking forward to this, because Emma. The full set of Beauty and the Beast trailers.

Hope this curation gives you what you need to keep creating. The world needs your stories!

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Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, Sept 4-10, 2016

September 13, 2016September 11, 2016 / Melanie Marttila

Lots of informal writerly learnings for you this week 🙂

K.M. Weiland posts another instalment in her most common writing mistakes series. Last week, it was part 53: no contractions in dialogue. Helping writers become authors

Later in the week, Kate returns with more lessons from the MCU: the right way and the wrong way to foreshadow.

Janice Hardy guest posts on Writers helping writers: how to stay organized during revision.

Later she posts on killing your darlings on her own Fiction University blog.

Sophie Masson offers some tips on how to use real-world places to inspire fictional settings. Writer Unboxed

Donald Maass: intensity. Writer Unboxed

Steven Pressfield examines the inciting incident and the call.

I shared the Tweet that inspired Chuck Wendig’s grammar rant last week. I’d also heard Grammar Girl, Mignon Fogarty, discuss it on her podcast a week or two earlier. Chuck brings up some good points, though. The ideal order of adjectives may well be how they sound best when spoken, and this can vary between English speaking countries as well as regionally, within each country, based on dialectical differences. Words like absolute and must, while they exist in the English language, sometimes don’t apply to it universally.

Annie Neugebauer is back with part two of her query letter mini-series: the extras. Writer Unboxed

Professional book critic, Laura Miller, extols the merits of Amazon reader reviews. Slate

If you’re going to participate in NaNoWriMo this year, you’d better start planning now. Bess Cosby for DIYMFA.

Sarah Selecky wonders how we make the time to write? An exploration of the concept of white space as it applies to process. Story is a state of mind

With timeframes ranging from 2.5 days to 16 years, this infographic on how long it takes to write a novel could give you the encouragement you need. Or not. Mental Floss

Jael Richardson outlines six reasons you should attend a Canadian literary festival. Includes lists of festivals into 2017. Open Book Toronto

Award news: The Scotiabank Giller Prize 2016 long list.

Gail Anderson-Dargatz: when the book is ready, it will find a home. The Globe and Mail

Ann Patchett: If writers are to survive, we must take responsibility for ourselves and our industry. The Guardian

This was the big, and somewhat controversial, news lat week. No, the internet hasn’t killed the printed book. Most readers still prefer them. Daniel Victor for The New York Times.

K.C. Alexander: publishing while female (A.K.A. why I stopped internalizing your shit). Terribleminds

Dashka Slater exposes the uncomfortable truth about children’s books. Mother Jones

Nisi Shawl: representing my equals. A discussion of how and why she chose the eleven POV characters in Everfair. Tor/Forge blog

Why Yassmin Abdel-Magied walked out of the key note speech at the Brisbane Writers Festival. Medium

The do’s and don’ts of writing a transgendered or non-binary character. The story and its writer

Brooks Barnes considers this summer’s mega-hits and super flops in cinema. Was this the year that movies stopped mattering? The New York Times

Natalie Zutter has updated the (very long) list of SFF works coming to the big and little screens, from the rumoured to in production. Tor.com

This is beautiful. Though it was completed more than a decade ago, this is the first time I’ve seen Destino, Walt Disney’s collaboration with Salvador Dali.

Marvel’s Luke Cage is the unapologetic, black superhero we’ve been waiting for. Evan Narcisse for i09.

Here’s the trailer for the next MCU movie I’m looking forward to: Dr. Strange.

And . . . Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

Come back Thursday for a short but insightful bit of thoughty.

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Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, July 3-9, 2016

July 12, 2016July 12, 2016 / Melanie Marttila

Some very interesting posts and articles this week 🙂

K.M. Weiland continues her most common writing mistakes series with part 52: stagnant story conflict. Helping writers become authors. Becca Puglisi guest posts later in the week with four ways to choose the right story setting. Kate returns with more lessons from Marvel: how to transform your story with a moment of truth.

Must you have conflict in every scene, disaster in every act? Roz Morris says, yes, and no. Nail your novel.

Kathryn Craft shares ten ways to add a spark of fire to your fiction. Writer Unboxed.

Donald Maass explores how to stay ahead of yourself . . . and your reader. Writer Unboxed.

Heather Bouwman writes (in the) happy middles. Writer Unboxed.

Annie Neugebauer begins a new series for Writer Unboxed. The query letter, part one: the pitch.

Sara Letourneau looks at the protagonist-antagonist relationship in DIYMFA’s developing themes in your stories series.

Data mining reveals the six basic emotional arcs of storytelling. MIT Technology Review.

“The six basic emotional arcs are these:

A steady, ongoing rise in emotional valence, as in a rags-to-riches story such as Alice’s Adventures Underground by Lewis Carroll. A steady ongoing fall in emotional valence, as in a tragedy such as Romeo and Juliet. A fall then a rise, such as the man-in-a-hole story, discussed by Vonnegut. A rise then a fall, such as the Greek myth of Icarus. Rise-fall-rise, such as Cinderella. Fall-rise-fall, such as Oedipus.”

Susan Spann busts some popular copyright myths. Writers in the storm.

Hugh Howey writes about an idea, broken. The Wayfarer.

Shakespeare and music.