THIS IS THE MOMENT WHEN, in your story world, everything has changed. The stranger has come to town, the father has died, the mother has left, the best friend has announced that she’s moving to Pakistan. Like In Media Res, in which you begin in the middle of the action, this technique relies on triggering…
The Cold Open – in media res
STARTING A NOVEL, writing that very first sentence, is as exhilarating and intimidating as riding a bicycle for the first time without training wheels. Many new writers think they need to explain a good deal more than they need to explain. They think that the first chapter is about laying a foundation so that the…
What? I thought I was done!
IT’S BEEN SIX MONTHS or more since I looked at my last novel, the one that was “done.” That novel is gearing up to go into production now, and I have a few notes from my editors, stuff to change. As I read through the manuscript for places to cut back or to develop a…
Sugarland – Jazz, Speakeasies, and Mayhem
Sugarland, my latest novel, was named for the corn sugar that bootleggers used to make hooch. One of the fun things about writing about the 1920s is all the great slang I could use, like hooch. My daughter has recently expressed a wish that saying “the bees’ knees” would come back into style. I agree!…
Sugarland Q & A
Recently I answered a few questions for Gef Fox’s Den for Dark Fiction about the impetus for writing my latest novel, Sugarland; writers who inspire me; and my least favorite writing advice. I thought I’d post an excerpt here. What was the spark that made you sit down to write Sugarland? I was listening to…
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