Are we digging the alphabetic layout of the A to Z challenge? Sure, it’s a little Sesame Street, but we may end up with something comprehensive by the end. 😉 Anyway, welcome to day 5, where we’ll be discussing external motivation. People (and characters) can be motivated for a number of reasons. We eat because…
Welcome to Day 4 of our story-oriented Blogging A to Z challenge. Today, we’ll be picking apart dialogue, which feels like it should be easy, doesn’t it? Here’s the thing: dialogue can make or break a story. No pressure, though. Good dialogue weaves seamlessly into the narrative. Bad dialogue… Well, bad dialogue makes readers close the book.…
For day three of our series, we’ll be discussing one of my favorite story elements, because it makes the story world go ’round: conflict. In most basic terms, conflict is a fight. I talked about types of conflict, including man vs. man and man vs. self, in this post. In this post, I described how…
In the first day of our series, we talked about something every good protagonist needs: agency. Today, we’ll talk about something else many can’t do without: best friends. Or coworkers, or spouses, or roommates . . . you get the idea. The sidekicks. In Young Adult novels, the best friend is an important character –…
Welcome to the first Blogging from A to Z challenge post! We start our series with the reason most stories exist – character agency. Great, now my characters need an agent too. Not so, aspiring writer (and for the record, you may not need one either, but we’ll save that for a different post). Simply…
In the past few years, I’ve seen bloggers participate in the Blogging From A to Z Challenge. After picking a theme, they post something about that theme every day during the month of April (not including Sundays). I’d considered doing it, but this is the first year I’ve actually done the necessary work of picking a…
Originally posted on DAN ALATORRE:
? your humble host You finally worked up the nerve to ask a real, live bookstore to have you sign books at an event! Okay, you emailed them. But they replied and now you have a signing event! Woo hoo! Uh oh… A real live event.With people. Or worse, maybe…
This post popped up in my Facebook memories yesterday. Now, let’s get a closer look. Aside from the obvious difference in word choice/reading level, there is a noticeable difference in length. The marketers must think guys don’t have time to read their body wash labels before they buy. For the record, I’ve never read a…
You guys know I like writing challenges, and Dan offered up an unusual one today:Â If today were your final blog post, what would you say? My first thought was…that’ll happen?? I can’t imagine not blogging, but I suppose someday I’ll have to wrap this up for whatever reason – my own circumstances, or the collapse…
Confession: I struggled to come up with a title for this post, because I knew the second you read “theme” you’d remember your high school literature classes and all their boringness and run away. “I want you to write . . . a theeeme!” Dun dun DUNNN! Come back! This won’t be boring! Know how…
Allison Maruska 