Writer Unboxed

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, May 3-9, 2015

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

Gots a bumper crop of Writerly Goodness this week!

Writerly news from the Sudz: Wordstock returns 🙂 The Sudbury Star.

Kristen Nelson shares four negotiating tactics of good agents.

Martin Hill Ortiz presents his analysis of 50 years of bestsellers. It explains a lot about how things have changed. Very interesting. In three parts, with more to come 🙂

Brenda Hiatt shares some interesting stats in her Traditional Publisher Survey. It’s from 2013, but it’s still interesting . . .

Roz Morris explains how to transition from academic writing, business writing, or journalism to fiction.

K.M. Weiland not only explains why unnecessary scenes are bad for your readers, but she also discusses the various types of unnecessary scenes and how to identify them so you can get ‘em outta your novel.

In Katie’s Wednesday vlog, she discusses how minor characters help make for a memorable protagonist.

Stuart Horowitz discusses how to plot without using a formula on Jane Friedman’s blog.

Therese Walsh posts part four of her multitasking series on Writer Unboxed: How to meditate when you’re too busy and why it matters – with Leo Babauta.

Donald Maass guides us through the process of using change to stir the higher emotions of our readers. Writer Unboxed.

In which Chuck Wendig critiques your story (that he hasn’t read). Read this amazing feat of digital prestidigitation and see if he doesn’t manage to do it (curse you, Wendig—you’re too brilliant for me).

Why being a debut author isn’t a dream come true (see the URL title for additional perspective: nipple deep in a mudpit of despair—oh joy). Buzzfeed.

Why your brain loves good storytelling. The Harvard Business Review.

Michael Hyatt discusses the power of persistence in his podcast.

16 modern poets you should read. Brit+Co.

The history of the ampersand:

And . . . the history of the interrobang‽

10 brilliant novels that have one fatal flaw. Charlie Jane Anders for i09.

May SF&F books that everyone will be talking about. i09.

Women in science fiction, a podcast from The New Yorker. Interestingly, I’m currently reading Pain, Porn, and Complicity, which explores some of the same issues. Interesting stuff.

Are our heroines too perfect? i09’s Observation Deck.

How Game of Thrones finally fixed its three weakest characters. Vanity Fair.

Holy cow! Where did all of that come from?

Come back for more curation on Thoughty Thursday where I will feed you interesting stuff to get your big squishy (brain) generating ideas 🙂

Tipsday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, April 26-May 2, 2015

/ Melanie Marttila / 5 Comments

Your prologue could be destroying your story’s subtext. K.M. Weiland – Helping writers become authors.

Are you misusing cliffhangers? Find out in Katie’s Wednesday vlog.

Christine Frazier of the Better Novel Project presents an infographic that will show you how to deconstruct a scene like Katie 🙂

Ruth Harris discusses the magic of novel rehab on Anne R. Allen’s blog. Never give up!

Gwendolyn Womack writes about the story iceberg on Writer Unboxed.

Jordan Rosenfeld guest posts on Writer Unboxed: the seven secrets of highly persistent writers.

Janice Hardy explains how mini arcs create more story depth.

Jane Friedman compiles links to all the relevant resources on her site for this post: How to find a literary agent. Heading into querying (most likely June), so I needed this 🙂

Books & Such agent, Wendy Lawson, discusses the issue of “Playing around the Edges.”

Writer tech awesome: Veronica Sicoe shows us how to format our novel for Smashwords in one day. Note: requires a #gallonofcoffee 🙂 Step by step with screenshots. Extremely helpful.

Klexos from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows:

The case for physical books. The National Post.

Grammarly presents the dark side of nursery rhymes.

Publisher’s Weekly lists their top ten most difficult books. How many of them have you read (or tried to read)?

Here’s Buzzfeed’s list of 26 books from around the world that we should read before we die.

How Shakespeare’s heroines evolved from one-dimensional to feminist. Flavorwire.

Last week’s Outlander episode featured full frontal male nudity and laughed in the face of rape. Salon.

Thanks for making Writerly Goodness part of your blog-reading pleasure 🙂

See you Thursday!

Tipsday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, April 19-25, 2015

/ Melanie Marttila

Some of the best writing posts and podcasts came out last week. Seriously. Awesome.

Here’s part 2 of K.M. Weiland’s Scrivener series: How she uses Scrivener to draft her novels.

How symbolism and subtext improve action beats in your dialogue. Katie’s Wednesday vlog.

Roz Morris’s video chat with Christine Nolfi and David Penny from #indierecon15: How to keep writing when time is scarce.

Then Roz joined Joanna Penn on The Creative Penn podcast to talk about plot.

Jami Gold has some excellent advice on . . . advice 🙂

Dan Blank wrote my favourite post of the week on Writer Unboxed: Shame and your writing career.

Christine Frazier of The Better Novel Project interviews Jeff Goins on the importance of fairy tales.

Jordan Rosenfeld guests on Jane Friedman’s blog on the topic of balanced productivity. Here’s another book for my “to read” pile . . .

Amazon pays this self-published writer $450,000 a year (!) I couldn’t do what Mark Dawson did. Kudos to him for making it. Forbes.

MPR News presents the top ten most challenged books of the year.

TED-Ed on Shakespearean insults:

Enrich your vocabulary with some 1920’s slang:

How Tatiana Maslany is transformed into a cast of clones by Orphan Black makeup artists. Vanity Fair.

See you on thoughty Thursday!

Tipsday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, April 12-18, 2015

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

How K.M. Weiland uses Scrivener to outline her novels.

Katie’s Wednesday vlog discusses how to help your readers love an unlikable character.

Roz Morris shares some common errors indie authors make in their self-published work.

Therese Walsh posts about finding the time to write (part 3 of her multitasking series) on Writer Unboxed.

Suzanne Alyssa posts on Sarah Selecky’s blog on the subject of the vulnerability of submission.

A two part post from Delilah S. Dawson on self-promotion: Please shut up, and Wait, keep talking.

Delilah S. Dawson guest posts on Chuck Wendig’s Terribleminds with 25 blood-spattered tips for writing violence.

Are these filter words weakening your fiction? Write it Sideways.

Jamie Raintree asks, are artists still allowed to be neurotic? Thinking through our fingers.

Diana Gabaldon interviews Susanna Kearsley at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore.

Anne Lamott: “Everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy, and scared.” Salon.

Tim Parks on CBC Radio’s The Sunday Edition: Writing in the Margins.

Sherwood Smith offers some thoughts on Heyer and Austin.

Astrophe: The feeling of being stuck on Earth. The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.

The history behind Orphan Black. The New Yorker.

For the Outlander fans: Interview with Sam Heughan.

The real romance behind Outlander. The New York Times.

Sesame Street’s Game of Chairs:

And that’s your Writerly Goodness for the week.

See you Thursday!

Tipsday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, April 5-11, 2015

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

A weekend of rest plus a weekend away at a convention equals slim pickings. It’s all Writerly Goodness, though 😀

“When did thrilling the reader become cheap?” Roz Morris weighs in on storytelling in literary fiction.

K.M. Weiland discusses how to ace your climactic moment.

Interaction is the key to dynamic scenes. Katie’s Wednesday vlog.

Fallacy: the primer for surprise. Blew. My. Mind. Writer Unboxed.

How dreams can lead to creative breakthroughs. Canva.

How the subconscious mind shapes creative writing. The Guardian.

Brainpickings presents Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s favourite books.

Authors Publish offers seven misattributed quotes. Oops.

Research suggests Shakespeare may have written ‘lost’ play. CNN.

Monks wrote in the margins, too. i09.

Alex Garland on being an “auteur” and his movie, Ex Machina. Grantland.

Thoughty Thursday appears to be full of YouTube this week (!)

See you then, my friends.

Tipsday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, March 29-April 4, 2015

/ Melanie Marttila / 7 Comments

Does it serve your story? Why killing your darlings is a mark of the mature writer. Roz Morris.

K.M. Weiland asks, What are pinch points and how can they make your story easier to write?

Show what your characters are thinking and feeling like a writer, rather than a director. Katie’s Wednesday vlog.

Ruth Harris shares the ten commandments of productive professional writers.

Here we are at day 29 of Janice Hardy’s online novel revision workshop: Eliminate unnecessary repetition. Though the month is over, you can peruse this lovely series of posts for revision assistance any time you want 🙂

Donald Maass discusses emotional work on Writer Unboxed.

Editor Rachel Starr Thomson guests on C.S. Lakin’s Live, Write, Thrive and writes about weaving in backstory.

Editorial advice: Stop using two spaces after a period. Cult of Pedagogy.

Eight natural phenomena to use in your stories. Mythcreants.

Reading makes us smarter and nicer. Readers are more empathetic. Who knew? Time.

Mary Robinette Kowal played an April Fool’s joke that wasn’t really a joke. She really is going to be working on Sesame Street.

Andrew Pyper is featured in Now.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia and her novel Signal to Noise have gained some high-profile attention. i09.

Culture and conflict on Warpworld: Dr. Robert Runte discusses Canadian vs. American Science Fiction.

J.K. Rowlings’ ten pieces of advice on the lessons of failure (and the commencement speech from which they were taken). The Guardian.

Six John Green Quotes on writing. Authors Publish.

Jack Kerouac’s 31 beliefs about writing. The Write Practice.

This is beautiful and poetic and the total reason I love abandoned places:

Masie Williams will be appearing in the next series of Doctor Who! i09.

The many faces of Tatiana Maslany. The New York Times Magazine. Are you looking forward to the return of Orphan Black?

Outlander and the spanking heard around the world by John Doyle for The Globe and Mail.

Spoilers are coming: George R.R. Martin releases a chapter of the latest Song of Ice and Fire novel. Time.

It was a writerly week!

See you on Thursday 🙂

Tipsday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, March 15-21, 2015

/ Melanie Marttila / 3 Comments

K.M. Weiland introduces the Story Structure Database, and excellent new resource for writers. You can contribute to it, too!

Roz Morris shares how writer’s block became an opportunity.

Anne R. Allen shares ten social marketing no-no’s.

Jamie Raintree shares her experience in finding her agent on Thinking through our fingers.

Shawn Coyne explains his second draft that is not a draft theory on Steven Pressfield’s blog.

Janice Hardy’s month-long revision workshop continues with day 15: clean up description and stage direction.

Christine Frazier offers lessons for writers from her analysis of The Dark Knight. The Better Novel Project.

Porter Anderson offers Amish Tripathi’s Shiva series for our consideration on Writer Unboxed.

The series of representation on SFF guest posts on Jim C. Hines’s blog continues with Sarah Chorn’s discussion of disability in SFF.

Need some visual inspiration? Here’s the Fantastical Women site featuring lots of fantasy art by women artists. Gorgeous!

Canva shares this list of 40 books on creativity. When I die, I suspect it will be because I was crushed by my pile of unread books (!)

18 perfect short stories. i09.

Fast Company presents an infographic on banned books and some of the reasons they were banned.

SF Signal interviews Tanya Huff.

Lightspeed interviews Patrick Rothfuss.

What happens when a fundamentalist Christian marries an atheist author? Sally McBride guest posts on WarpWorld.

Now there are some consumable readables! Nom-a-nom-a-nom . . .

See you Thursday!

Tipsday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, March 8-14, 2015

/ Melanie Marttila / 4 Comments

Sir Terry Pratchett passed away last week.

Here’s Neil Gaiman’s very worthwhile talk at JCCSF. It basically turned into a tribute to his friend.

 

Here is BuzzFeed’s ranking of Pratchett’s Discworld novels.

Sir Terry will live on in the words of his books and in the hearts of his readers.

 

K.M. Weiland’s Sunday blog and podcast is dedicated to writers on the verge of writing spectacularly complex characters.

Why is your awesome protagonist boring readers to death? Katie’s Wednesday vlog.

Janice Hardy’s month-long novel revision workshop on Fiction University continues. Here’s day eight.

Jodie Renner guests on Anne R. Allen’s blog with this step-by-step guide to writing a prize-winning short story.

Therese Walsh explores multitasking further on Writer Unboxed. Snakes on a brain.

Veronica Sicoe posts on how to clean up your manuscript formatting in MS Word.

Kameron Hurley muses on the virtues of becoming a professional writer.

The second round of Jim C. Hines’s guest posts on representation in SFF begins with this post by LaShawn Wanak on false narratives.

Grammarly presents the strange origins of English idioms.

Grammarly (again) offers ten quotes from Winnie the Pooh that will make you smile.

BuzzFeed weighed in with these 31 quotes from children’s books.

Vanity Fair analyzes the Game of Thrones season 5 trailer.

And HBO is doing a 30-day countdown. Here’s the first instalment: Who are the sand snakes?

Tor.com shares 13 fantasies that are based on myths from the British Isles.

Lessons for writers from Bavarian Fairy Tales. The Take Away.

See you Thursday!

Tipsday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, March 1-7, 2015

/ Melanie Marttila

I’m beginning to think that the universe is trying to tell me something 😉 Between Tipsday and Thoughty Thursday this week, you’ll see a definite theme developing. Or not . . .

K.M. Weiland continues her common writing mistakes series with part 39: referencing characters by title rather than by name.

In Katie’s Wednesday vlog, she discusses the reasons why avalanches, wolves, and lightning storms may not be the best way to begin your novel.

Roz Morris posts about resilience. I love the image she found—a bear on a trampoline 🙂

In her series on debut author lessons, Mary Robinette Kowal tackles the topic of writing full time. Important to know: as a self-employed professional, if you’re not writing, you are unemployed.

Poet Mary Oliver inspired Anna Elliott to write a post for Writer Unboxed with this line: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Steven Pressfield writes about self-doubt and what the soul knows about keeping you on the true path.

Janice Hardy has started a month-long revision workshop on Fiction University. Start here with her March 1st post and follow along. Great step-by-step analysis of every aspect of your novel.

Here’s a post outlining the principles of ergonomics for writers from the World’s Greatest Book blog.

And because it’s related, here’s the TED-ed video that explains why sitting too much is bad for us:

 

What Alice in Wonderland reveals about the brain. This could go either on Tipsday or Thoughty Thursday, but because the book is the basis for the article, I’m placing it here. BBC.

When George R. R. Martin was asked how he could write female characters so well, his answer was, “Well, they’re human beings, aren’t they?” When I saw the title of Kate Elliott’s post for Tor.com, I knew it was going to be interesting: writing women characters as human beings.

Women artists re-envision images of their favourite SFF characters. i09.

39 misused words and how to use them correctly. Time.

How Catriona Balfe nailed her audition with one line. TV Line.

Pets who’d rather you pet them than read. The Dodo.

That’s a wrap!

See you Thursday 🙂

Tipsday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, Feb 22-28, 2015

/ Melanie Marttila

Roz Morris asks the question, can writing be taught?

In a related article . . . things Ryan Boudinot can say about MFA programs now that he no longer teaches in one. The Stranger.

Now, this started up a bit of a kerfuffle. Though the following two posts by Chuck Wendig belong to the current week, I’m offering them as a counterpoint to Boudinot’s. Some people agreed with Boudinot and some with Wendig. Some took exception to the whole conversation. You may judge for yourselves.

K.M. Weiland explores the six elements of an effective story premise in her weekly post and podcast.

And her Wednesday vlog: how to drive your readers wild with hints and hooks without frustrating them. It’s a delicate balance.

Dan Blank posts on becoming a student of your own writing process on Writer Unboxed. I love process-y stuff. This was “in my wheelhouse.”

Heather Webb explores the science of character creation (lots of resources). Writer Unboxed.

The Kobo Writing Life podcast: Mark Leslie interviews Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

This one goes along with my post on Gatekeepers, rejection, and resilience: Ten of the reasons your manuscript might be rejected. Ruth Harris on Anne R. Allen’s blog.

And . . . 12 famous authors on literary rejection. Aerogramme Writers’ Studio.

Tor.com’s Ilana C. Myer deconstructs the strong, female character in SFF.

Okay, I’m gonna link dump here, but each one of these posts on Jim C. Hines’s web site on the topic of representation is well worth the read. Expand your brains.

How to know if you’re really a writer. Authors Publish.

The ALLi watchdog examines the merits of Amazon versus Apple.

May 2, 2015 will be the first ever Canadian Authors for Indies Day. Publisher’s Weekly.

30 books that were challenged by censors. Infographic on CBC Books.

Why How to get away with murder is TV’s most progressive show. The Daily Beast. It’s great storytelling. Also, I watch TV and movies for craft. This belongs in the writing tips post. So sez me.

And that’s all the Writerly Goodness I gots for this week.

See you Thoughty Thursday!

Tipsday