I recently rewatched “The Sting” with Robert Redford and Paul Newman. Enjoyable for a lot of reasons! But one thing that impressed me was how well the movie used settings. You may or may not remember that early in the movie Redford had to flee to Chicago, where he was looking for Newman, whom he’d never met. So, try to think of how you’d stage that. I’d probably have Redford knocking on a door in some seedy neighborhood or something….
During the pandemic, my condo building management asked me to read chapter one of The Wysman and let them send it to my neighbors who were stuck inside. I was happy to oblige. Click through to see the reading.
If you belong to a book club, inevitably, there comes a month when it’s your turn to pick the book. Over time, you learn that this can be a trickier task than you anticipated. Obviously, you want your fellow members to enjoy reading the book. I, personally, can’t always guess what people will like. Last year, I chose Madeline Miller’s Circe, which was an Amazon Editor’s Pick. Several people in my club had never read Homer or studied Greek myth…
There are a lot of ways for writers to be published these days—big presses, small presses, independent or self-publishing platforms. But even within each of these categories, there are differences. I’m very proud of my current small press publisher, Inspired Quill. IQ is located in the UK, and one reason I’m proud of them is that, in the UK, they are a registered social enterprise. I’d never heard the term “social enterprise” before I read IQ’s site while researching them….
Recently, I was walking down my building’s hallway behind an old guy with a cane. He was talking very loudly on his cell, and he said, “I am driving in my car, and I cannot take your call.” At that point, he turned down a side hall, so that was all I heard. I went home and wrote what I’d seen in my story idea notebook. The Story Idea Notebook My story idea notebook is exactly what it sounds like:…
I recently read Maggie Stiefvater’s Call Down the Hawk, and as I read, I admired how thoroughly she saturates every line of the book with the voice of the point-of-view character. When I refer to a character’s “voice,” I mean the way their experience, education, emotions, and attitude affect the words they use. It’s what turns point of view from a pair of observing eyes to a revelation about the observing character. I was in the process of doing a…
When I was writing The Wysman, I realized that fantasy novels in which a handicapped teen was allowed to be the central character were few and far between. I occasionally saw them as sidekicks, but not as the heroes and heroines. This list includes as many more recent books as I could find in which the handicapped character is the star. I haven’t read them all, but I tried to get some sense of them from their descriptions and reviews….
Back in the days before the pandemic, I was lucky enough to be invited to speak to ninety sixth graders about writing. They’d been writing themselves, and the room in which we met had wonderful samples of their work posted on the walls. I wound up leading them through an exercise on how to turn an idea into a plot. I started with the idea I had for my only middle grade book Finders Keepers. The idea came to me…
I find that people outside the world of Young Adult fiction often don’t understand what YA is. I have neighbors without children around or older book club members who lump it in with the whole children’s market. They see it and chapter books as being in the same category. Even people in children’s fiction sometimes have trouble. I once read opening pages a loud at a meeting of the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and someone suggested that…
Power is a ubiquitous theme in fantasy. Over and over, we see questions about who has power, how they got it, and whether they wield it wisely. The Quest for Political Power One of the most common elements in a fantasy plot is a struggle over who should rule the kingdom. That quest for political power is often backed up by military might, i.e. physical power. So there are lots of exciting battles, ranging from single combat to large scale…