Blessed Friday from Gail Gaymer Martin at www.gailgaymermartin.com Another month has passed with life whizzing past for most of us. Autumn is here, and we know that winter hovers on the edges of our weather, but I'm still enjoying a few sturdy flowers in my garden. . .even some beautiful roses. But today my tasks is to share some writing tips with you, and this one has to theme and the question: What Is Theme? One of the most difficult terms to define is theme. While sometimes called, the lesson, moral or main idea behind the story, theme is really…
Category: Writing craft
This is our archive pagePUGS Pointers #26
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. Each blog post will have one tip for each of the four categories. (For more PUGS tips, check out my website, or get a copy of my book Polishing the PUGS (available through the website or at the conferences where I teach). If you’re interested in working with a freelance editor (or know someone who is), e-mail me through the contact…
Let It Unfold
In the Book of Genesis, God created the world – all of it! - in 6 days and rested on the 7th (and I daresay He's been busy ever since)! Was it then that began humankind's fascination, or perhaps sometimes obsession, with things "faster, bigger, greater?" Biblical reference aside (God is, after all, above and beyond us mere mortals), all around us, we hear of the things people accomplish in seemingly, amazingly brief periods of time. As workers in the written word, we marvel at bookstore shelves where certain authors take up whole rows, or whose volumes even ripple down to…
Learn How to Write Fiction From Short Stories
Wishing you a blessed Friday from Gail Gaymer Martin at www.gailgaymermartin.com I'm at a conference in Indianapolis and all of my writing blogs are on my office computer so I decided to do something different for you this month. Though I'm a novelist, I have sold a number of short stories years ago when I first began to write so today, I want to share one of these stories with you. I think we can learn from short stories too. The technique needed in a short story to set up characters and provide a conflict, but in a short time period. Short…
PUGS Pointers #25
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. Each blog post will have one tip for each of the four categories. (For more PUGS tips, check out my website, or get a copy of my book Polishing the PUGS (available through the website or at the conferences where I teach). If you’re interested in working with a freelance editor (or know someone who is), e-mail me…
Tips on Writing for Young Children
Writing for young children is much harder than many writers realize—that is until they try it! As a children's author and freelance editor, I reveiw children's stories that writers hope to publish. I often see the same mistakes being made by different writers, so in today's blog, I will address those common mistakes in order to help writers avoid them.
Sometimes, It’s What We Don’t Say That Matters
As writers who work at our craft every day, we meet the blank page squarely with the intent of filling it. What will we write about? How will we describe our characters? Which facts will we use to flesh out our story and, if writing an opinion piece, our arguments? But there is another element to writing that is often more potent than what we say on a page. That is, what we don't say. Indeed, the use of not using certain words, descriptions, or dialogue is a potent part of the writer's craft, strong and bold when used well,…
Walk-On and Secondary Characters
Welcome to the CAN blog and some information about writing fiction from Gail Gaymer Martin at www.gailgaymermartin.com Most writers learn how to create believeable main characters who are usual the man or woman bringing the story to life through their perceptions, emotions and actions, but learning how to use secondary characters is a different process altogether. Numerous characters appear in your novels for realism and to provide a piece of action necessary to move the story forward or to broaden characterization of a main character. These walk-on characters might be referred to as the waiter, clerk, cab driver, mail carrier,…
PUGS Pointers #24
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. Each blog post will have one tip for each of the four categories. (For more PUGS tips, check out my website, or get a copy of my book Polishing the PUGS (available through the website or at the conferences where I teach). If you’re interested in working with a freelance editor (or know someone who is), e-mail me through the…
What to do when facing injustice
How do you put into words the devastation that leaves you numb? As writers, we need to possess the ability to express the deepest pain, the biggest joy, and the most complicated emotions. I tried that. But the effort nearly drained me.
