Every story needs certain elements to be a story. We’ve talked about characters, settings, and problems. If we’re following the mnemonic below, that leaves us with solutions to talk about. Cows = Characters See = Setting Pretty = Problem Sunflowers = Solution This works great for eight-year-olds learning the parts of the story they should…
I haven’t been an author for long, especially compared to the literary giants who have become household names. Most of those guys have been writing longer than I’ve been alive. But even so, having a couple published books under my belt has taught me some things – things I didn’t completely expect, though a couple…
I wasn’t planning to blog today, but then I saw this article on Facebook. Since nearly 100,000 others were talking about it, according to fb, chances are good that you saw it too. If you don’t want to read it right now (though I’d recommend doing so at some point) the premise is this: Life is…
A few weeks ago, in the post about setting, I shared with you a mnemonic I used with my students to help them remember the important parts of a story: Cows See Pretty Sunflowers. Cows = Characters See = Setting Pretty = Problem Sunflowers = Solution All these things are necessary to have a good story.…
If you dig into a writing group, you’ll likely discover two camps: short story writers and novelists. Short story writers specialize in a greater number of short pieces of fiction (let’s say up to 10,000 words), while novelists spend their time writing fewer long works (an “average” adult novel is 80,000 – 100,000 words). Writers…
I need to write from my heart today. Last spring, cancer took my grandmother. Last fall, it took my other grandmother. Last night, it took my friend. I wrote this as I lay awake in the darkness early this morning. I didn’t write it to win sympathy from anyone. I wrote it as a promise…
Back when I was an elementary school teacher, I created a mnemonic device to help my students remember to include all the story elements in their retells: Cows See Pretty Sunflowers. I didn’t say it was a great mnemonic. But it worked. Cows = Characters See = Setting Pretty = Problem Sunflowers = Solution They drew…
Nothing beats the feeling of typing The End following the last scene of your manuscript. You’ve spent weeks to months to years laboring over sentence construction, timeline details, and character development, among many other things. Now is the time to celebrate. Because soon, it will be time to edit. If you’re groaning, stop it. This…
Stephen King says a lot of quote-worthy things. Many of them are true. The one I think is the most true is this: Writers must be readers. It’s how we learn from the masters. I know this is true because I’ve been a voracious reader since I could first decode words. My absolute favorite book…
Confession: I didn’t jump onto the whole “The Walking Dead” bandwagon until recently. Next confession: It was a message series at church that got me on board. But maybe that should be their confession. I was a slow adopter of TWD because it’s such a fad – I never watched it, but all I had…
Allison Maruska 