I've used all kinds of tools to track things across the length of a manuscript. I've used giant pieces of paper, spreadsheets, and meta-data. But I think I'm in love with this one: Aeon Timeline 2. First, let me explain what I'm tracking and why. ...
Writers, this may sound familiar. You dream up a new character, and for a while it's okay to refer to them in your head as 'the dude' or 'heroine' or 'cat', but eventually you run into that roadblock where you realize... I need to name these people. ...
Scrivener does a lot of nifty things. I think most people are aware by now that it has a cork board/index card function. Each text file has an accompanying information card, where you can put things like a description of what the file contains. These ...
Last week Writer Unboxed ran a piece called How to Craft a Page-Turning Plot by Cathy Yardley. While I was reading, something clicked in my brain. The article is rather long, but the relevant part is under item 1. Apologies for such a long quote, ...
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, ...
...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 ...
