Good morning from Gail Gaymer Martin. For the next few months, I’m talking about conflict and tension, the heart of fiction. It is what grabs the reader and makes the story memorable. Last week, I introduced the set up to tension and talk about characters, their goals and the hooks that keep the reader turning pages.Today you read about the nature of conflict . While tension is the emotion of a novel, conflict is the power. It drives the story forward and causes the reader to hang on and go with the ride.Without conflict the scenes would be a slow walk through…
Category: Writing craft
This is our archive pageTaking the High Road
One of my favorite poems is Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.” You may remember its closing lines: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.
Happy About Your Endings?
Hello! Maureen Pratt here with my monthly CAN blog about the craft of writing. This month, some thoughts about satisfying, "gotta read this author again" endings. Whether you’re writing fiction or non-fiction, each piece has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Although they are each crucial to telling a good story, it’s the ending that gives readers the final feeling, the ultimate impression, of the work as a whole. If your beginning hooked them into starting to read, and if your middle was expertly crafted to keep them reading along with your storytelling, then the ending is that wonderful…
Tension And Conflict Part I
Welcome to CAN’s new website from Gail Gaymer Martin. Today I will begin a new series on Tension and Confict which is a driving force in fiction writing. I hope you enjoy the seven articles on this topic. The Set Up to Tension and Conflict I recently presented a workshop on tension and conflict. The topic offers many steps to writing a good novel. I began this workshop with the basic elements needed to begin a novel because it sets up how conflict begins. Conflict is a concept you know is vital to any story. It is what drives your…
Proofreading Pointers #33
Hi! I’m Kathy Ide. In addition to being a published author, I’m a full-time professional freelance editor. For CAN, I’m blogging about “PUGS”–Punctuation, Usage, Grammar, and Spelling … tips for writers based on the most common mistakes I see in the manuscripts I edit. These are excerpts from my new book, Proofreading Secrets of Best-Selling Authors, which reveal how multi-published authors proofread their manuscripts to avoid typos, inconsistencies, inaccuracies, and PUGS errors. (The book is available from Amazon.) If you’re interested in working with a freelance editor (or know someone who is), e-mail me through the contact page of my website. Or go to the Christian Editor…
Seeds and Stories
Hello, and Happy Easter! Maureen Pratt here with my monthly CAN blog – just in time for Easter joy and Springtime green! This time of year is fresh with promise. Trees are budding, flowers are blooming, and seeds are sprouting. My creative juices seem to flow more freely at this time of year, too, and all sorts of seedlings are popping up, showing off their first leaves, and looking good for the coming warmer months. What in the world am I talking about? There are powerful analogies between gardening and growth and solid story-telling. Whether fiction or non-fiction, our writing…
Are You a Scribe of the Kingdom?
Hi, writers! Dave Fessenden here to ask you a question: Are you a scribe of the Kingdom? Tucked away in the last chapter of Romans is a seemingly obscure verse: “I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter, greet you in the Lord” (16:22). Tertius was a scribe, and the ministry he performed was an important one. Though his function was little more than that of a secretary, Tertius stands as an example to Christian writers: he faithfully committed to paper the things he heard from the Apostle Paul.
Proofreading Pointers #32
Hi! I’m Kathy Ide. In addition to being a published author, I’m a full-time professional freelance editor. For CAN, I’m blogging about “PUGS”–Punctuation, Usage, Grammar, and Spelling … tips for writers based on the most common mistakes I see in the manuscripts I edit. These are excerpts from my new book, Proofreading Secrets of Best-Selling Authors, which reveal how multi-published authors proofread their manuscripts to avoid typos, inconsistencies, inaccuracies, and PUGS errors. (The book is available from Amazon.) If you’re interested in working with a freelance editor (or know someone who is), e-mail me through the contact page of my website. Or go to the Christian Editor…
When You’re In Drought
Here in Southern California, we’re experiencing a severe drought. The land is unquestionably dry, and at times, the air is sandy from loose, small particles kicked up by the winds. Destructive fire is more of a risk, now. We’re being asked to be "careful" about water usage. No mandatory rationing so far, but should this continue… As far as I can tell, when a drought happens, there are basically two ways of quenching the proverbial thirst. One is rain from the sky, and the other is to divert existing water from elsewhere. Of course, this last brings up the question,…
The Safire Principle—or, How to Avoid Head-Scratching
Hi, folks, Dave Fessenden here with a bit of writing advice, brought to you by my friend Steve Dunham. A brilliant veteran of the publishing world, Steve has edited books, magazines, newsletters, and even technical manuals, bringing a fresh wind of clarity into the morass of modern verbiage. I often consult him when I am stuck on an editorial issue, and he never fails to help. I recently brought the following conundrum to him, a problem that (surprisingly) I had never encountered before. An author had just sent me a manuscript with this phrase: “Matthew 6:14–16 define . . .”…
