The 10 Most Important Questions to Ask about Your Scenes
In my work as a professional freelance copyeditor and critiquer for publishers, literary agents, and authors in six continents, I…
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6 Questions to Get to the Heart of Your Story
Here are some thoughts discussed in my book Writing the Heart of Your Story—important things for novelists to think about…
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How Theme in Fiction Gets to the Heart of Your Characters
This is a reprint from 10 years ago, looking at one of my absolutely favorite movies. If you haven’t seen…
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Universal Themes That Can Be Found in Movies
Here’s another post I wrote ten years ago on theme. Enjoy! I can’t resist talking about my favorite movie—well, my…
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Theme That Mirrors Real Life
Today’s post is a reprint from 10 years ago. Theme is so important in a work of fiction, so dig…
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Mastering the Voice of the Memoirist
This post originally ran on Jane Friedman’s blog in 2017. Be aware there are mature passages in here. Voice is…
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Looking Back over the Journey to the Heart
“The idea is to write so that people hear it, and it slides through the brain and goes straight to…
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The Universality Is in the Details
I started thinking about universality since we want our novel’s theme to have universal appeal—meaning a whole bunch of people…
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A Peek inside the Envelope
Sol Stein, the famous editor, author, and writing instructor, has a very short chapter in his classic book Stein on…
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