Tag: plot

What Ju-Jitsu Can Teach Us About Writing

  I don’t believe anything in life is wasted. And now that I am a blogger? Definitely NOTHING gets wasted. Everything I have ever been through can be a lesson. Years ago, I taught Ju-Jitsu. Hey, I sucked at sports and was a nerd, and martial arts goes with the territory so you can at …

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Little Darlings & Why They Must Die..for Real

Almost any of us who decided one day to get serious about our writing, read Stephen King’s On Writing. Great book, if you haven’t read it. But one thing King tells us we writers must be willing to do, is that we must be willing to, “Kill the little darlings.” Now, King was not the …

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5 Common Writing Pitfalls

Before we get started, I would like to announce that my new book Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer is now ready for purchase at B&N in e-book. This week, we are going to take a break from talking about the antagonist and, instead, focus on some common writing errors that seem to plague …

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Antagonists–The Alpha and the Omega of the Story

Law Abiding Citizen 2009 For the past month or so, we have been discussing the antagonist, and how vital he/she/it is to the story. I’ve run critique groups for seven years. I also have edited literally hundreds of manuscripts, and one thing that most new writers do not accurately understand is the antagonist. I have …

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Twitter Tuesday #12

Welcome to the twelfth installment of Twitter Tuesday. In the spirit of Twitter, this blog will be short and sweet and to the point. The tips offered here are all based off my best-selling book We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media. If our goal is to build an author platform in the thousands to tens of thousands, then we will …

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