Category: Uncategorized

Using Backstory Effectively

  All righty. So we have been discussing “flashbacks” and I have been working hard to pull this blanket term apart because not everything that shifts back in time is the dreaded “training wheel flashback” that make us editors break out in hives. New writers love to shift back and forth in time because they …

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Brave New Publishing—Amazon Testing Paying Authors by the Page

We live in a really strange time and technology has altered the publishing landscape into something we could never have imagined in 1999. The changes have been nothing short of science fiction. Well, buckle your seat belts because it is about to happen again. Just about the time we kind of get the knack of …

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More than Just a Flashback—Introducing the Easter Egg

So we have spent a couple posts talking about “flashbacks” and I need to take a moment to expound on something. I was a naturally good editor. It’s how I got my start. But I would cut things out or change things because in my gut they didn’t work. And, I was pretty much always correct …

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Understanding the Flashback—Bending Time as a Literary Device

We can mistakenly believe that any time an author shifts time that is the dreaded “flashback” I am referring to and the one I (as an editor) will cut. Not necessarily. We need to broaden our understanding of the “flashback” because lumping every backwards shift in time under one umbrella won’t work.

Why Flashbacks Ruin Fiction

All of us will feel a NEED to explain why a character is moody, angry, broken, bawdy, whatever. DON’T. Resist the urge to EXPLAIN. In fact, if readers don’t know WHY, they will want to turn pages to find out WHY.