Over this year, Karina is going to share some of her writing seminars on the blog, with the lessons and references for further study. We’ll be posting these once a month. There’s no assigned homework, but if you have questions, please ask them in the comments. Her first workshop […]
Monday’s Writing Tips – Finding an Editor
After you have created the second draft of your novel, you are not finished. I find that after I have done all the edits that I know how to do, I need the help of a professional. Writing is a wonderful skill and talent! I believe it is a gift […]
Monday’s Writing Tips – The Second Draft
We have been working on one chapter of your novel. Let’s recap. First, we striped it down to the bones by removing all adjectives and adverbs. Afterwards we checked the validity of our bare bones plot. Second, we added unique and powerful adjectives as necessary. Instead of adding adverbs we […]
Freelance Writing – The Owner Never Calls in Sick
In Part One I introduced myself. In Part Two, I introduced the varied opportunities for the Freelance Writer. Now in Part Three, we need to discuss this whole idea of me and you as freelance writers. I put myself first there (even if it is usually reversed) on purpose because […]
Monday’s Writing Tips – The Beat!
As a writer, I love language! I love when I learn a new word. I love when I find a new poem that touches my heart. I even enjoy commercial jingles that stick in my mind and haunt me throughout the day. There is a magic to language. Let’s face […]
Monday’s Writing Tips – “Go Fish”
Now that we’ve created the perfect opening line for your chapter, let’s get to the closing. If you want to keep your reader turning those pages you need to end your chapter with a hook! What is a Hook? If you loved fishing as much as I do you wouldn’t […]
Monday’s Writing Tips – Part 2 of Edits 2
Now that we have done about half of the edits on the chapter we have been working on, it should be greatly improved. Let’s look at some other important features. The First Sentence- So many authors spent endless hours perfecting the first line of their novel. They have been […]
Monday’s Writing Tips – Edits, Step 2
Now that we’ve gotten our chapter down to the bare bones, it is time to put new flesh on it. Let’s start with the adverbs. ADVERBS: Adverbs are the sign of weak verbs. Break out your thesaurus and look at the verbs you are using. For example: “He ran […]
Monday’s Writing Tips – Let’s start writing!
We’ve been busy, haven’t we? Over the last few weeks we’ve developed our characters, learned how to use our adjectives and adverbs, created our storyboards, set up our office, and even discussed the importance of prayer. So when do we actually write? How about right now? I know writers […]
Transitions – How to get your character from here to there
One area of writing craft that doesn’t get a lot of attention is that of writing transitions. You’ve gotten to the end of a scene, or maybe just to the middle, and the characters need to move to a different location, or perhaps some time must pass. How do we […]