Hi all, I’ve just been nominated for the “Thought Provoking Blog” award by Amanda Bretz. Yay! What a fun way to start the week. 
The rules?
1. Thank the person who nominated you.
A sincere thank you to fiction writer and blogger, Amanda Bretz! Stop by and check out her blog.
2. Post the image on your blog.
Yup. See above.
3. Share seven things about yourself.
I swear people, I’m running out of things to share. How about I list 7 thought provoking pieces of advice I’ve held onto about fiction writing:
- Write. Revise. Repeat.
- If your latest MS didn’t get picked up, keep on writing…
- Every scene must have an arc
- Every major character relationship should also have an arc
- The tension from the main plot won’t carry the MS –you need “microtension” and conflict
- Conflict and frustration are the heart of fiction
- Don’t love your characters so much that you give them what they want
4. Pass the award to five blogs you enjoy.
You guys ready for another blog contest? Me too! Here’s the deal: Every blogger who posts a thought-provoking piece of advice for writers in the comment section will automatically be nominated for the “Thought Provoking Blog” award.
The person who posts my favorite bit of advice will receive a gently used copy of editor Betsy Lerner’s “The Forest for the Trees: An Editor’s Advice to Writers”
Good luck! Hope you all had a great holiday weekend.
My advice is: Once you take the leap to submit your work, it just gets easier and easier to submit after that. Remember that a rejection notice isn’t rejecting your work; it’s stating the publisher’s position that *their* journal/platform doesn’t coincide with that particular piece of work. Just resubmit until it finds a happy home.
Great advice, Misky. You’ve got to develop a tough skin in this business!
Well, everyone won’t agree with my advice, but it works for me. Don’t “think” too much when you write. Let the characters lead you on their story. It’s amazing what happens!
Hey, Pam –I’ve never heard anyone put this into words, but I know it’s true for most of us. There have been times when I’ve tried to “force” a scene that wasn’t working and once I let go and just let the words flow, the writing followed.
You don’t have to write WHAT you know, but you do have to write WHOM you know. When you have such an intimate understanding of your character that you can drop him/her into any situation in any book you read and know exactly what he/she will do, then you’re ready to write.
Love this piece of advice!
Ditto what Sara said! I love this piece of advice. Characterization is so difficult that it’s absolutely necessary to pull from your life experiences.
Writers write. Dreamers talk about writing.
Sara, you lovely sage. This is pure simple wisdom.
Good one, Sara! Thank you!
In order to keep reader’s interest you must write long threads of conflict and also short threads and then weave them together so that you begin a new thread of conflict before the old thread unravels.
Squeals! I haven’t read this one before. I love this concept (and now that I’m thinking of it, I can see it at work in a lot of fiction I love). Can’t wait to analyze my latest WIP to see how effectively I’m doing this!
Advice eh? Ok:
Its impossible to please everybody, so don’t try. Write for yourself and your love of the act, rather than following trends or to please an agent.
That’s what I’d say.
And congratulations on the award, by the way. Its one I’ve not seen before.
Great advice, Ileandra! At Backspace in May the agents were definitely saying that as soon as a “trend” is a “trend,” it’s over
When I develop characters, I like to draw from real life. I draw from real flesh and blood people with real experiences. I infuse the trait, personality, experience into my character so as to lend the character a complex multi-dimensional persona. I sometimes combine more than one person into a character. I imagine how the real person would respond to an event or circumstance, how they would think, or how they would express their thoughts. For example, I picked a friend’s life experiences growing up in different countries as the persona of my main character who meets the elderly couple in one of Otto’s beautiful photos. And then, I created a story of his relationship with them. I also picked information of Otto’s trips to Utah and Arizona and used it in my story.
Great advice on picking up character traits from the people we know!
When in doubt, cut.
I sooo need to tape this to my computer screen.
I really like your pieces of advice, Erin. One bit of advice I remember from Stephen King’s book is “kill your darlings” – if one of your scenes or characters doesn’t fit in with the story or novel, it needs to get cut, no matter how much you like it or feel it was well-written. (sniff)
Yes, and it’s so hard to do. “Cut them!” he says, “even if it breaks your poor scribbler’s heart…”
Breathe… Relax… Write. Congrats on your award!
I really hate that I missed this one!