The 10 Most Important Questions to Ask about Your Scenes
In my work as a professional freelance copyeditor and critiquer for publishers, literary agents, and authors in six continents, I…
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6 Questions to Get to the Heart of Your Story
Here are some thoughts discussed in my book Writing the Heart of Your Story—important things for novelists to think about…
How Theme in Fiction Gets to the Heart of Your Characters
This is a reprint from 10 years ago, looking at one of my absolutely favorite movies. If you haven’t seen…
Universal Themes That Can Be Found in Movies
Here’s another post I wrote ten years ago on theme. Enjoy! I can’t resist talking about my favorite movie—well, my…
Theme That Mirrors Real Life
Today’s post is a reprint from 10 years ago. Theme is so important in a work of fiction, so dig…
Mastering the Voice of the Memoirist
This post originally ran on Jane Friedman’s blog in 2017. Be aware there are mature passages in here. Voice is…
Looking Back over the Journey to the Heart
“The idea is to write so that people hear it, and it slides through the brain and goes straight to…
The Universality Is in the Details
I started thinking about universality since we want our novel’s theme to have universal appeal—meaning a whole bunch of people…
A Peek inside the Envelope
Sol Stein, the famous editor, author, and writing instructor, has a very short chapter in his classic book Stein on…
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