tips for writers

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, Aug 10-16, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila / 4 Comments

Here we go in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1!

K.M. Weiland’s blog tour continues on the Writer.ly community with the ten commandments of reading like a writer.

And on Darcy Pattison’s Fiction Notes with four types of villains.

Here’s Katie’s regular Sunday post with podcast: How to figure out what your character’s arc should be.

Finally, her Wednesday vlog: Characters or ciphers? Which are you casting in your story?

MJ Bush collects 99 essential quotes on character creation. Each entry cited and linked for further reference.

Sarah Callender posts about rumination frustration on Writer Unboxed.

Lisa Cron explains how to get what you need out of a famous author’s talk. Very useful for conferences, conventions, and literary festivals.

And . . . forgetful Mel forgot to catch up on the couple of posts I couldn’t link two Tipsdays ago when WU was experiencing some technical difficulties. So here they are now: David Corbett on the tyranny of motive, and Jane Kisacky on the many dreams of writing.

Becca Puglisi ponders, what makes a good blurb? on Writers Helping Writers.

Jami Gold guests on Anne R. Allen’s blog: Everything you need to know about giving and receiving feedback on your WIP.

Then, Jami had to follow up on her blog with the beta reading worksheet.

Jami also posted on characters both strong and vulnerable.

Bronwyn Hemus of Standoutbooks explains why showing and telling is not an either/or proposition, but a matter of how and when.

Here’s Amy Shojai’s entry in the writing process blog hop: Why I write what I write.

Barbara Geiger’s confessions of an ex-there-are-no-rules-writer.

Rebecca T. Dickson tells us all the crap someone should have told us writers by now.

Julian Friedmann on the mystery of storytelling. TEDxEaling.

 

Open Culture shares Jane Austen’s unusual editing method.

Fifteen scientists share their favourite science fiction novels and movies. The Huffington Post Science.

As a friend of mine would say, that’s a shite-load of Writerly Goodness.

Enjoy, my friends 🙂

Tipsday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, Aug 3-9, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila / 3 Comments

Anne R. Allen explores the good and bad of critique groups.

What’s the most important relationship in your story? K.M. Weiland explores how focusing on this aspect of your story could improve it.

Then Katie continued her blog tour on Janice Hardy’s Fiction University, on finding your character’s breaking point.

And then she continued the tour on Procrastiwriter with, What Jane Eyre can teach us about mind-blowing heroines.

Opening lines (and scenes) are some of the most difficult to write. K.M. Weiland has some suggestions for you in her post about Most Common Writing Mistakes: Boring opening lines. Podcast link included.

SF author Veronica Sicoe writes about opening line madness. See, everyone struggles.

MJ Bush guests on Writers Helping Writers (Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi) on the problem of overly self-aware protagonists.

Then she posted about inner conflict on WritingGeekery.

Casting your novel may seem like frivolous fun, but Fantasy Faction offers five ways it can help improve your story.

Stuck on a scene? Janice Hardy gamifies the work of sorting through scene outcomes on Fiction University.

QueryQuagmire (on Tumblr) offers ten things writers should keep in mind before diving into revisions.

Porter Anderson shares Hugh Howey’s ten counterintuitive tips for self-publishers on Publishing Perspectives.

The Canada Council has denied operational funding to On Spec. Susan MacGregor, On Spec editor and author, explains the situation and offers some options to help. On Spec is a Canadian institution in speculative fiction, and the quality of their fiction, editing, and production, is excellent.

I know this first hand. My SF short story “Downtime” will be appearing in the fall 2014 issue, and Barb Galler-Smith, the editor with whom I worked, was very professional. That the magazine is excellent is not just my opinion, though. On Spec is an award nominated, and award winning publication.

Their Patreon account has now been set up. Go to the On Spec web site for more information.

Why Fifty Shades of Grey has bondage all wrong. Tickld.

Forgotten Dr. Seuss stories and other news from Poets & Writers.

Mashable offers up their list of 22 summer reads.

Ten SF novels that will make you more passionate about science, from io9.

Ursula K. LeGuin talks to Michael Cunningham about genre, gender, and broadening fiction on ElectricLit.

Billy Collins shares two dog poems in this brief TED talk.

 

Wow! That’s a lot of Writerly Goodness.

Enjoy, folks 🙂

Tipsday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz July 27-Aug 2, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila

Sorry for the late-ish post. Had to go to Yin practice tonight. Yoga was beginning to think I abandoned her 😉

Roz Morris started her Masterclass for The Guardian. This is the first post in her daily reporting on the queries arising from hre students. Catch all of her snapshots. She’s got a clever bunch there.

Part 3 of K.M. Weiland’s negative character arc series: The negative character arc in the third act. Surprise, surprise!

And here’s more Katie, guest-posting on Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi’s Writers Helping Writers. Five important ways to use symbolism in your story is part of Katie’s ongoing blog tour in honour of her new book: Jane Eyre: Writer’s Digest Annotated Classics. It’s the last day to enter her giveaway! Go get ‘em writing tigers 🙂

And . . . Katie’s Wednesday vlogs return with foreshadowing’s number one job in your story. Welcome back, vlogs! We missed you!

Writer Unboxed is experiencing some technical difficulties so The Tyranny of Motive and The Many Dreams of Writing will have to wait until next week.

Shennandoah Diaz writes about three ways to save your backstory from the cutting room floor on the There are No Rules blog at Writer’s Digest.

Laura Drake shares her tale of tragedy and triumph on Writers in the Storm.

Edits, Editors, Editing. Ruth Harris explores the secret weapon of every successful writer on Anne R. Allen’s blog.

Elif Shafak’s TED talk on the politics of story.

Quentin Cooper asks the question, why is science fiction so hard to define, on the BBC’s Future blog.

Crawford Killian looks at three SF&F writers who break the mould in The Tyee.

21 books that changed science fiction and fantasy forever from io9.

Electric Lit shares a lovely list of supernatural collective nouns. Anyone for a fondle of unicorns (I thought that was a blessing)?

CNN Travel features the world’s coolest bookstores. Ok . . . gotta sop up the drool here.

Enjoy the Writerly Goodness, my peeps. See y’all Thursday.

Tipsday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, July 20-26, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila / 5 Comments

Angela Ackerman details her encounter with copyright infringement on Writers Helping Writers. This is serious stuff.

I’ve had other writerly friends who’ve noticed their books have been pirated and if you’ve been following Angela on FB, you probably know that she’s encountered that too.

There’s a mode of thought on the interwebz that says pirating is not your enemy. If people like your book so much they steal it, then it will likely convert to more readers.

I think that argument is fundamentally flawed. Chuck Wendig spoke to this quite eloquently a few months ago, here, here, and here.

What if people are stealing your work and trying to make money off it illegally by selling it and pocketing the profits? For a self-published author, the book is her livelihood. Even for the traditionally published, what money he might have seen from a legitimate sale, disappears. It’s wrong.

And the readers who buy these pirated copies may not even know that their money is not going to the author. That’s doubly wrong. Theft, deceit, and fraud? That’s jail time people.

But as Chuck said, it’s not just about the money. An author (or authors) slaved over that book for months, if not years. It’s their intellectual property (IP). It’s their blood, sweat, and tears.

Don’t pirate books. Don’t do it.

<end rant>

Onward, to more light-hearted material.

M.M. Finck posts on Women Writers, Women’s Books about the querying process and why it’s not just about the query. Thanks to Jamie Raintree (see below) for bringing this to my attention.

Anthony Metivier guest-blogged about how to mine your dreams for story gold on Writers Helping Writers.

Bringing a strong vision to your fiction, by Laura K. Cowan, for Writer Unboxed.

Jamie Raintree asks, how far do we follow our dreams? Since we’ve become acquainted, Jamie’s acquired an agent and is now working on a second novel. I love watching her journey unfold.

Here’s Janice Hardy’s guest post for Anne R. Allen’s blog about how not to start a novel.

Veronica Sicoe follows up last week’s post on how she structures her novels with this one on how she brainstorms an idea into a working concept.

K.M. Weiland continues her negative character arc series with part 2: The negative character arc in the second act.

Whether you’re considering hiring a ghost writer, or becoming one, this post by Roz Morris will answer your questions.

Four reasons to use dramatic irony from Writers Write.

Chuck Wendig gets a mention again for sharing this i09 post about Snowpiercer and its fascinating influence. Yes, it’s a South Korean movie based on a French graphic novel, but it’s still great storytelling.

Xia Jia shares her thoughts on what makes Chinese science fiction, Chinese on Tor.com. Translated by Ken Liu. It’s interesting socio-political stuff.

And if your to-be-read (TBR) pile isn’t big enough yet, here is some recommended reading from TED.

Flavorwire presents the 35 writers who run the literary internet.

As a follow-up to my last week’s posting of the CanLit song, here’s every Canadian novel ever. It’s kind of true. And funny. The Toast.

And that’s it for this week, folks.

Thanks for following, sharing, and all the good stuff you do.

Tipsday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz July 13-19, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

A cavalcade of creative coolness. Just for you.

The July 2014 author earnings report. For those who haven’t already read it.

Anne R. Allen defines traditional publishing and offers some perspective on what’s happening with the Big Five in this changing publishing world.

Carly Watters points out the biggest query letter mistake.

Jamie Raintree writes about what we can and can’t control in the business of writing.

In which Veronica Sicoe shares her method for planning a novel.

The negative character arc series begins. K.M. Weiland.

And moar Katie: What if your antagonist is right?

MJ Bush guest posts on Writers Helping Writers. Three steps to deepening your character with anger.

Reverse engineering your character arc with Jami Gold.

Roz Morris diagnoses and prescribes treatment for a writer’s ailment: The plot hole.

Kristen Lamb discusses the seven deadly sins (and a few virtues) of prologues.

The BookBaby blog asks, are you more creative writing by hand or typing?

Brainpickings features Leonard Cohen on creativity, hard work, and perseverance. Excerpted from Paul Zollo’s Songwriters on Song-writing.

How SF writers predicted the conflict in the Ukraine and how they’re trying to stop it. Slate.

David Brin shared this SF story by E.M. Forster (written in 1909): The Machine Stops.

Grammar Girl, Mignon Fogarty shares ten words whose pronunciation has changed over the years.

Everybody and their dog’s pet hamster has been sharing this around the interwebz ‘cause Weird Al is just so brilliant 🙂

 

And Kari Maaren sings a lovely little song about CanLit 🙂

 

Enjoy, my writerly peeps 🙂

Tipsday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz July 6-12, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila

Not a huge whack this week folks, but what there is, is all quality 🙂

Most common writing mistakes with K.M. Weiland. This week, one dimensional conflict.

Janice Hardy discusses character development.

Roz Morris demonstrates her beat sheet technique with Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.

Anne R. Allen lists twelve dumb things writers do to sidetrack our success.

The ever-awesome Robin LaFevers writes about the crushing weight of expectations on Writer Unboxed.

Lisa Cron writes about how writers have the powah on Writer Unboxed.

Carly Watters reveals three signs that you’re past the form letter rejection stage.

Writer’s Relief presents the joy of gerunds.

Did you need even moar books to read? I didn’t think so. Still, here’s The Millions’ book preview for the second half of 2014.

Eight things you should know about Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series from the Barnes & Noble book blog.

A review of the two volume Robert Heinlein biography from Barnes & Noble Reviews.

Enjoy!

Tipsday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, June 29-July 5, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

Heading off to yoga shortly, so getting this week’s offerings up all hasty like.

Despite the title, K.M. Weiland offers writers some comfort: Why every story you write is a guaranteed failure.

C.H. Griffin posts about what Firefly can teach us about writing. Love Joss Whedon and Firefly, so this geek was caught at the title 😉

Infuse your fiction with Donald Maass on Writer Unboxed.

Ruth Harris blew me away with all of these writerly resources, many of them free!

Neuromarketing advises us to forget the fold. Interesting news for those of us who have usually posted loooong.

Roz Morris counsels a young aspirant about what path she should take to become a writer. This is good advice for anyone considering taking a course, workshop, or degree to bolster their “qualifications.”

The CBC’s list of the 100 novels that make us proud to be Canadian.

Brainpickings presents the greatest books of all time, as voted by 125 famous authors.

Why people in the 19th century thought reading fiction was bad for you. The Huffington Post.

A TED Ed video on the art of metaphor by Jane Hirshfield.

Four lessons in creativity from Julie Burstein. A TED Talk.

And that she be it.

Tipsday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz June 22-28, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

Happy Canada Day, writerly peeps!

Red-Maple-Leaf-for-Canada-Day

Publishing news of the week: Writer’s Digest dumps Author Solutions. What David Gaughran thinks of the move.

Roz Morris explains how to write from an outline and still be creative. My subtitle: How to bend it like Morris 😉

The third and final instalment of K.M. Weiland’s flat character arc series: The flat character arc in the third act.

MJ Bush wrote a guest post for Writers Helping Writers on how regret can deepen your character’s arc.

Training your internal editor with Mary Robinette Kowal.

Writers, what do you fear? Dan Blank offers some compelling thoughts on how to deal on Writer Unboxed.

66 facts you may not have known about the English language from The Huffington Post.

John Vorhaus lets his wordy whimsy out to play on Writer Unboxed.

14 pieces of brilliant short fiction from Art.Mic.

Five hundred fairy tales discovered in Germany, brought to you by The Guardian. I can’t wait to get into these!

See you on Thoughty Thursday!

Tipsday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz June 15-21, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

There’s a little bit of everything this week. A little craft advice, some blogging tips, love for the word nerds and the book worms, writerly brain science, and a couple of thoughtful pieces about women in fiction and making it in the world of fandom.

Part two of K.M. Weiland’s how to write a flat character arc series.

Later in the week, Cathy Yardley wrote a guest post for Katie: Six tips to outline your novel faster.

Jan O’Hara discusses McKee’s four tips on writing a BIG story on Writer Unboxed.

Anne R. Allen’s blogging essentials for authors.

In related news, Roz Morris answers the question, how much time should an author spend blogging and building websites?

10 words that started out as errors from Grammar Girl, Mignon Fogarty.

Moar wordnerdery from ideas.ted.com: 20 words that used to mean something completely different.

24 quotes that will inspire you to write more from Buzzfeed.

Also from Buzzfeed, 37 books every creative person should read.

Back with ideas.ted.com, six science fiction and fantasy books for the app generation.

Benedict Cumberbatch reads Kurt Vonnegut’s letter to McCarthy after the burning of (among other books) Slaughterhouse Five.

 

I just saw Lisa Cron tweet about this NY Times article: This is your brain on writing, by Carl Zimmer.

Tasha Robinson’s post on The Dissolve, We’re losing all our strong female characters to Trinity Syndrome, caused a bit of a furor on the SFCanada listserv, and elsewhere on the interwebz.

Jim C. Hines shares his Continuum guest of honour speech. It’s kick-ass. Then again, Jim’s good at that kind of thing 😉

Enjoy, my writerly peeps.

Tipsday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz June 8-14, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila

Another fine crop of lovely stuff to share. I’m even curating the curators this week 😉

Ten ways to tell a story – all about point of view from Writers Write out of South Africa. Solid article with good examples.

Are shifts in point of view and head-hopping always bad? Roz Morris answers.

How to ‘stay lit’ from The New York Times. An article Roz brought to my attention.

Finishing the novel: the daily task of “getting it done.” Elissa Field shares her process.

Elissa’s also a fellow curator. Here’s her Friday links for writers.

Writing the flat character arc, part 1: the first act. K.M. Weiland’s next character arc series begins!

What kindergarten got (and still gets) really, really wrong. The continuation of Lisa Cron’s standardized testing adventure on Writer Unboxed.

Robin Lafevers discusses what writing as therapy means to her. Also from Writer Unboxed.

Agent Noah Lukeman shares fifteen tips to help sell your ebook series.

The Atlantic: No, The Fault in Our Stars is not young adult fiction’s saviour. A few weeks back, I posted an article that posited Greenlit (for John Green, author of the above named YA novel) was a thing. Is this article the other side of that coin? Read and find out.

Guy Bergstom’s Red Pen of Doom: The six horsemen of the writepocalypse.

Enjoy, my writerly peeps.

I’m heading down to CanWrite! tomorrow. While I’ll keep the blog fires burning, I might be a little scarce around the interwebz otherwise. Good news, though: I’ll have more panels and sessions to blog!

Whee!

Tipsday