Category: Writing Process
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The Truth is Stranger than Fiction. Sometimes.
I remember when I was around twenty years old, and I decided to write my autobiography. Yeah, it makes me laugh now, too. What in the world was I going to say about myself at such a young age when I had no idea what I even wanted to do with my life? I don’t…
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Writer’s Block Because of Distraction
I currently cannot write. It has nothing to do with a lack of ideas, interesting characters, or twisting plot-lines in my head. I have plenty of those. I can’t write because I’m distracted, and this fact has actually taught me a few things about writing. First off, I’m distracted over drama. I write, direct, produce…
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Writing Stories that Teach and Make People Think
I love stories that teach. Not in a pedagogical sense, but stories that emit meaning, that make one think. Stories that teach us something about the human condition. Stories, for me, have to be about more than just entertainment. In our increasingly relativistic world, I have seen a general trend in storytelling – it has…
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Don’t Take Good Ideas for Granted. Plan ahead!
Have you ever been in such a good creative patch that you are overflowing with ideas and not enough time to accomplish them all? Relish those days. That’s what I keep telling myself. I am currently overflowing with ideas. I’ve started to map out my drama writing 13 months in advance because I’m producing too…
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Ways to write when you have no time to write.
Does this happen to you? You finally get some good, extended, quality time for writing, and you whip off thousands of words day after day in a frenzy of creativity only to have life slap you in the face and say, “Slow down. You have other things to do.” Grrrr. How true it is! Last…
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Chapter Titles or Chapter Numbers?
It was my wife that put me on to this one. One of her pet peeves is when authors only used numbers to differentiate between chapters. That is … Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, etc … As she says, it’s extremely boring and not very useful. She loves it when authors take the time…
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A monologue in a novel?
Do writers put monologues in novels? I’m sure they do. Or they have. My wife, who is a voracious reader, can’t remember any long monologues in the hundreds of books that she has read — at least not the type of monologue I’m talking about. I like monologues. They are great in plays – a…
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Thinking is Writing (aka: writing in a pool)
Thinking is writing. I’ve said this before, but the longer I’ve been a writer the truer it becomes. (Sometimes to the detriment to the people around me. I am not ignoring you on purpose.) A writer friend mentioned yesterday that I should do some writing without paper, pencil or device. I took the advice. I…
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I’m sure my writing is uneven because my brain is uneven
Before bed last night, I clicked on Scrivener to read over a chapter from my new novel. I was tired and had few expectations for greatness as my blurry eyes started scanning down the page. And then the strangest thing happened, words flew randomly out of my head, and they made sense. Some even bordered…
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I’d Rather Write a Novel than a Summary of that Novel
I’m at it again. One of my most frustrating times of the year. Writing the dreaded “blurb” that will become the back of my novel or the description on Amazon or just the pitch that I’ll use with reviewers. I’m nearly at the point of sending the draft of my fourth novel out to some…
Author Mark W Sasse 