Tag: WANA International craft classes

The Cait and Kim Show

It’s Squatter’s Rights Wednesday, which today means, not just me, Cait Reynolds, but also Kim Alexander! Today, we begin by not only sharing the obligatory Denny Basenji picture, but also ONION! Because who doesn’t need more Onion in their lives? RIGHT? Kim recently came to visit me (okay, she came to visit her brother, but …

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Do You Have "As You Know, Bob…" Syndrome?–How Writers Can Butcher Dialogue & How to Fix It

One of the best ways to move plot forward with increasing momentum and to create living, breathing characters is by harnessing the power of dialogue. As an editor for twelve years, I can tell you dialogue is one of the single largest components of writing great fiction, and it’s the part that’s most often butchered. The story can be great, the setting, the prose? And then comes this clunky dialogue with characters talking in ways only seen on bad soap operas or movies highlighted/slayed by “Rotten Tomatoes.”

Structure Part 5–Keeping Focused & Nailing the Pitch–Understand Your "Seed Idea"

Welcome to the 5th installation on the topic of structure. As an editor for years, I consider myself somewhat of an expert in spotting and fixing structural problems. Sadly, over the course of doing this many years, I have run into far too many novels that had plot problems that ran so deeply there was no …

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