5 Ways to Revive a Manuscript That Doesn’t Work – By Janice Hardy…

Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog

on Fiction University:

Difficult manuscripts often need tough love and hard choices to make them work.

Last year, I had three manuscripts for novels that didn’t work. They were all stories and concepts I loved, but the drafts got less-than-stellar feedback. But I wasn’t willing to give up on those stories, because I believed in them, even while they tried to kill me and my muse.

Some of them have been waiting years for me to figure out how to fix them. It took me a while, but I have a good feeling about all three of them now.

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Ambiance and Writing

Story Empire

Hey, SE Readers. Joan with you on this September morning. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, we’re only three days away from the beginning of autumn—my favorite time of year. I love the cooler temperatures, the changing leaves, migrating birds, and fall fairs and festivals.

While the stores are already putting out Christmas decorations, and at least one friend has already decorated her house, I like to enjoy the fall. IMO, Christmas decorations don’t belong in a house until after Thanksgiving, but that’s another story.

I do enjoy the Christmas season. I’ve often toyed with the idea of writing a collection of short stories set during that time of year. I think about it each December, which is always a busy month, and by then it’s too late to write the stories, much less publish them. After Christmas, I don’t even like to think about the holiday, so once again, the…

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Writing Goals: Seven Ways to Ensure You Reach Them – By Jordan Kantey…

Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog

on Writers Helping Writers:

The joy of having finished a draft is one of writing’s great pleasures, yet to get there, you need to set – and find ways to keep – writing goals.

Here are seven ideas to build accountability and ensure small wins keep rolling:

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How to Use Prologues, Part 7, Unexpected Clues

Story Empire

Image courtesy of Tumisu via Pixabay

Hi SErs! It’s a day of Harmony here at Story Empire 🙂 Today, I’d like to talk about Unexpected Clues in a prologue. Here’s a link to the previous post on Foreshadowing.

How do you write unexpected clues into your prologue, and do it well?

1. Unlike the foreshadowing, which we looked at last time, introducing an unexpected clue means giving something vital away … read on!
2. With the unexpected clue, you let your reader into a secret. However, this is a secret that your main character doesn’t know about.
3. In a way, this mimics foreshadowing in that it gives your reader an insight into what’s coming, but in this instance, your reader gets to see the main character stumbling around blind while knowing vital information that the poor protagonist doesn’t. I love this kind of stuff. I sit and yell at them…

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Write What You’re Passionate About

Story Empire

Hi, SEers. You’re with Mae today. I hope you’ll forgive me while I ramble. As writers we’re lucky we get to do something we enjoy—creating stories. No one makes us sit down at a keyboard and pour our heart into a world we populate with twists and turns for characters who live in our heads.

Okay, so maybe your muse spurs you on, but your museisyour creativity. The voice inside you that won’t be silenced, that insists on expressing himself or herself with every click of the keyboard or stroke of the pen. Writing is your passion but is it your only intense interest?

Writers often find ways to combine the elements they love. Some are obvious—you could say Stephen King likes creepy stuff. Not a stretch, right? Others are more subtle. Many romance authors admit to having fallen in love with fairy tales as a child. The…

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Happy #StarTrekDay

This is a reblog of a post from a few years ago

53 years ago today, the first episode of Star Trek aired and a global phenomenon was born, with there being 13 films, 7 TV series, more projects in the works, and millions of fans worldwide.     Live long and prosper. (all images found on Pinterest)

Happy #StarTrekDay

Star Trek Day #startrekday

Happy Star Trek Day 🖖

Star Trek premiered 56 years ago today. In honor, here is a quote from creator Gene Roddenberry.

Images found by Google search

Bad Publishing District Cartoon – by Tom Gauld…

The Master List of Fictional Characters

I recently shared some common (and less common) types of short stories. Like you, I was surprised there were so many. How about a list of characters regularly found in fiction? Surely the list would be relatively short, right? Well… no. Ken Miyamoto shared no less than 99 archetypes and stock characters found in movies […]

The Master List of Fictional Characters

Characters Need to Be Perfect! Real People Can Screw Up!

Legends of Windemere

Over the course of this year, I’ve seen several authors talk about reviews complaining about character intelligence.  Specifically, readers hate when a character makes a ‘stupid mistake’.  They feel it ruins the story and go on a rant.  I think we’ve all seen this in action and had this reaction as well.  Yet, there is something to consider: REALITY.

First, let’s admit that we’ve all gotten annoyed with a character who makes a stupid mistake.  It’s usually something that ruins an established plan or causes the plot to take a sudden turn.  We think it’s contrived and done entirely to extend the story, which isn’t entirely true.  A character could be perfect and make every right decision to reach the ending fairly quickly.  That would be boring, but it’s feasible and what people unwittingly ask for when they rail against character mistakes.  Oops.

This reaction is born from frustration and…

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