Dianne Neal Matthews here, with a word of encouragement for your second Monday of the month. In order to share this message, I’m forced to admit something—and I hope it won’t lessen your opinion of me.
Category: Writing craft
This is our archive pagePUGS Pointers #9
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, as well as a reason it’s important for authors to “polish their PUGS.” (For more PUGS tips, check out my website, www.KathyIde.com, 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…
Intimate Storytelling – Part II Character’s Feelings
Warmest winter wishes from Gail Gaymer Martin at www.gailmartin.com It's amazing how the winter has marched by with warm temperatures in many of the colder states. It makes us anxious for spring, especially those places that have experienced the horrible tornadoes so early in the year. Prayers go out to all of them. I believe that intimacy in our storytelling style helps us to touch readers in an amazing way. Part I of Intimate Storytelling covered some of the elements of staying in a POV character’s viewpoint, but intimate storytelling needs more than a character’s viewpoint. The reader needs to feel…
PUGS Pointers #8
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, as well as a reason it’s important for authors to “polish their PUGS.” (For more PUGS tips, check out my website, www.KathyIde.com, 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…
Writing Short
Then God said: "Let there be light," and there was light. Genesis 1:1 Hello! Maureen Pratt here with my first CAN Blog post. I've been asked to write once a month about writing – one of my favorite topics! Today, I'm going to start off with a topic that sometimes confounds many writers – "writing short." As I'm the author of a 600-word syndicated, international column, I'm steeped in this style with each piece I file. And, more than ever before, we use this kind of writing, especially on the Internet. But it can be so difficult to adapt…
PUGS Pointers #7
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, as well as a reason it’s important for authors to “polish their PUGS.” (For more PUGS tips, check out my website, www.KathyIde.com, 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…
Intimate Storytelling – Part I Character Viewpoint
Hi from Gail Gaymer Martin at www.gailmartin.com One of an authors goals is to have our characters connect with our readers. They begin to care about them and to relate to their joys and sorrows. They don't want to put down the book because it's like saying good bye to a good friend. As writers, then, we try to use writing techniques that connect in an intimate way with our readers and this can happen by our storytelling style. One thing that first person offers that third doesn’t is an intimacy between the POV character and the reader. In first person,…
Poetry Basics: Organizing the Poem I
Hello. I'm Donn Taylor, here again to talk more about poetry writing and ways to achieve the "higher voltage" that distinguishes poetry from most prose. We've talked about putting strong words in emphatic places, use of images, and a little bit about figurative language. Reserving that last for further treatment later, today we'll begin looking at ways to organize a poem. Those ways are infinite, or course, so we'll confine ourselves to some of the most common. Today, only one. First, some generalizations: In narrative poetry, the structure of the story becomes the structure of the poem. That…
PUGS Pointers #6
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, as well as a reason it’s important for authors to “polish their PUGS.” (For more PUGS tips, check out my website, www.KathyIde.com, 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…
Hopes and Fears
Good morning from Ava Pennington, CAN Secretary, in sunny Florida… The week between Christmas and New Year is a time between times. The build up to Christmas is over. The new year has yet to begin. Anticipation gives way to fatigue. The Christmas decorations seem to have outlasted their welcome, but I’m not ready to take them down yet. And as much as I love Christmas hymns and carols, they seem anticlimactic. But one Christmas hymn in particular speaks to the writer in me this week.
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