When I made the transition from picture books to middle grade I devoured everything in my path. Amelia Bedelia. Mrs. Piggly-Wiggly. The Egypt Game. All of the American Girl series. Most of the Babysitters Club--we're talking twenty books at a time. I ...
This is one of my favorite tidbits, made ever-cooler by its origin. It's a trick that comes from the writers of South Park, Matt Stone and Trey Parker. I first learned of it from the documentary about how an episode gets made, 6 Days to Air: The Maki ...
On Writer Unboxed there's a post called Central Casting by David Corbett. I find the premise a little alarming. Quoting Gore Vidal: very writer has a given theater in his head, a repertory company. Shakespeare has fifty characters, I have ten, Tenne ...
I read a lot of blog posts on writing, thanks to Twitter. A lot of the information is on repeat, but not The Ego Struggle: The Core of the Romance Storyline posted by AndreaJWenger. I think this post has some solid insight. When it comes to romance, ...
This is a concept I heard about years ago and have never forgotten. It's kind of fascinating. TV Tropes defines adaptation displacement as: Adaptation displacement is the phenomenon by which a derivative work becomes successful enough to overshadow ...
...well, that's just not a story. Conflict is essential to story. Without it, there's nothing to tell. It's just, "Two ducks existed. They lived in harmony. The end." Yesterday I got a beta reader request that began with, "It is a romance story that ...
