Many Americans (including me!) have bad eating habits. Too much junk food. Too much food, period! We’re overstuffed. We suffer health problems and image problems. We must cut the fat. When our writing becomes overstuffed, our readers suffer through pages of boring narrative. And we suffer, too–our writing success is endangered. We must cut the […]
Mastering the Craft of Writing
New posts will be published in this category every Wednesday.
Resist the Urge to Explain
We’re to write fast, edit slowly, but if we’re aware of habits as we write, the editing process will be much less painful. Since my own drafts are full of great “bad habit” examples, I’ll use excerpts from them throughout this series. The next bad writing habit we’ll discuss is RUE–Resist the Urge to Explain. […]
Polishing the PUGS
Some fiction writers imagine great stories just waiting to transform into a novel. Some nonfiction writers have researched amazing facts they wish to compile into a book or magazine article. The problem is, both types of writers get bogged down with the basics of writing, or what my editor friend Kathy Ide calls the PUGS–punctuation, […]
No Bad Writing!
Desperate to pad my ailing word count, I stared at the blinking cursor and typed a sentence. I re-read the newest eight words of my WIP (work in progress) and, like a scene from “Secret Window,” muttered, “No bad writing!” This frightened my daughter, who remembered how bad writing had affected Johnny Depp’s character. How […]
Breaking Bad Writing Habits
Several years ago, I offered an online writing course on my blog titled, “Creating Compelling Content.” It originated as a presentation I’d given to several writers’ groups and I adapted it for use as a giveaway to build my email list. The course is comprised of two parts: “Breaking Bad Writing Habits” and “Perk Up […]
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