Fiction
Top Ten List for Writers
Patience. In abundance. Pressed down and overflowing. Everything takes time. And lots more time than you could imagine. So if you write, you’ll shake the doors of heaven begging for patience. What ifs. A writer takes a “what if” and crafts a story around it. Without a “what if” question, there would be no books,…
Writing Big and Trimming the Fat
When I first began writing fiction, I was taught by one of my brilliant teachers to write BIG. (Which actually means big in word count.) He told us to plug in the research, to write lengthy descriptions, and just let the words flow. So that’s what I usually do. When I finish, I step back and…
Pacing in a Story
Tuesday Teachings from the archives: I’ve been going back through the wonderful content on Writer…Interrupted and wanted to share the relevant teaching from past posts! Hope you enjoy this new Tuesday feature!- Gina Where do you start a story? You have a few pages (for some a few paragraphs) to catch an editor or reader’s attention.…
Fiction Friday: More tips for cutting a synopsis
Tip#4 to cut a synopsis—relevance Cut absolutely anything that does not have direct impact on the main storyline. Be ruthless. Don’t leave things in because they pertain to a subplot. Don’t go off for too long (more than a few sentences) on a red herring. Don’t include character backstory that doesn’t absolutely need to be…
Writing Your Novel Idea
Tuesday Teachings from the archives: I’ve been going back through the wonderful content on Writer…Interrupted and wanted to share the relevant teaching from past posts! Hope you enjoy this new Tuesday feature! This month’s feature: From Idea to The End I wrote fiction unsuccessfully for many years. What boosted me to publication was a class…
Quick Tips for How to Write a Synopsis
Tuesday Teachings from the archives: I’ve been going back through the wonderful content on Writer…Interrupted and wanted to share the relevant teaching from past posts! Hope you enjoy this new Tuesday feature!- Gina This is a really quick, easy way to write your synopsis. This is especially easy if you only need to write a chapter-by-chapter…
Fiction Friday: Synopsis writing – spiritual arc/internal conflict
An editor will want to know how your character changes over the course of the book. These days, even characters who remain relatively static—like Stephanie Plum or Hercule Poirot—show some sort of change by the end of the book, maybe in new information or a changed relationship with another character. It’s important to include…
Tips for cutting a synopsis
Tip#1 to cut a synopsis—formatting Check your formatting. Make sure all your margins are 1 inch. Make your header ½ inch from the top. Make your header only one line with the manuscript title, the word “synopsis,” and your last name (e-mail address optional) on the left side, and then the page number (optional) on…
I Will Persist Until I Succeed
“By perseverance the snail reached the ark.” ~ Charles Spurgeon ~ As a writer, I know if I don’t persevere I will never succeed. Rejections can destroy even the best of writers. Yet perseverance didn’t come naturally to me like the snail gunning for Noah’s ark. He knew if he didn’t keep going, he would…
Researching and Interviewing with Care and Consideration
Tuesday Teachings from the archives: I’ve been going back through the wonderful content on Writer…Interrupted and wanted to share the relevant teaching from past posts! Hope you enjoy this new Tuesday feature! This month’s feature: From Idea to The End In researching for my four WWII novels, I’ve interviewed veterans and Holocaust survivors–some of whom had…