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Editing and Reading Observations… Part 11…
What Do You Do With All These Suggestions? To answer the question bluntly… You write the next story. None of these 20 or so observations are meant in the slightest to get you to take a story and rewrite it. Wow! What a horrid waste of time. These observations are for your creative voice, so that on your next story and the one after that you might not make the same mistake, or at least not make it in the same way. Also, these observations are to maybe help you spot where you need more craft learning and practice. (Practice is called writing the next story.) And thirdly, to help…
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Bryant Street Coming Next Week!
A Really Cool New Kickstarter! Bryant Street Kickstarter. Bryant Street is where The Twilight Zone lives. A really twisted, but normal-looking subdivision street. 40 stories in four books. The seasons of Bryant Street, basically. Or four seasons of a Bryant Street television series, 10 episodes per season. Go to https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/403649867/bryant-street to sign up to be notified when it launches. And the campaign will have two really great short story workshops that you can only get through Kickstarter, and stretch goals to write stories for Pulphouse, and a ton of other stuff. And every backer of every reward gets the four books of Bryant Street stories. This will only last for…
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Editing and Reading Observations… Part 10…
Character Issues… I am reading slowly through all the Pulphouse submissions. So if you haven’t gotten anything from me yet, don’t worry. Got two things about characters I have observed in stories lately that just drive me nuts. Again, most of my story returns are for reasons I have talked about in the first nine parts of this series. But these two character problems tend to crop up about one out of every twenty or so stories. Born on Page One… To be honest, I had this writing problem in my first years. The character has no past and shows no opinions that would have been formed in the past.…
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Sale! Just Three Bundles!
Last Day of Extended Lifetime Workshop Sale… But start of a very limited sale of just three bundles… (Lifetime workshop sale information below.) But first, over the last three days I have answered three different basic copyright questions. Now understand, I do not mind answering questions. Not at all. But my one question response does not help a writer learn copyright, the most critical element of being a writer. Last year we did a weekly class of four videos a week for all 52 weeks called BITE-SIZED COPYRIGHT. It is still available and I think one of the most important classes we have every given. 208 videos on copyright for…
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Reminder of Everything Starting Up…
Yesterday’s Post Full of Details… Just wanted to point to yesterday’s post one last time because so many cool things starting up or ending right now. I will be back tomorrow with another reading and editing post. LIFETIME SUBSCRIPTION SALE has one more day. Details in yesterday’s post. ONE SPOT LEFT IN MENTOR PROGRAM. I am holding a spot for one person, but still one left after that. 50 YEARS OF LEARNING class is starting. I am having a blast recording it. All FEBRUARY REGULAR WORKSHOPS are starting, including the new Paradox class. And after yesterday’s post only 5 spots remaining in the anthology workshop and 3 spots in the…
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Anthology and Craft In-Person Workshops…
Only Six Spots Left in Anthology Workshop… The anthology workshop is a really fun workshop (held this year for the first time since the pandemic). In April and May you write four short stories for four different live anthologies. Then four or five editors will be reading stories and actually talking about them and buying them for live anthologies right there in front of everyone. The editors will talk about why a story works or does not work for them. Fantastic learning listening to professional editors disagree. And every writer attending will have read everyone else’s stories, but can’t say a word. Only the editor’s opinions matter. This is amazing…
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Editing and Reading Observations… Part 9…
Bad Choices by the Writer… In previous parts of this series, I have been talking about why I will stop reading a story. I have mostly focused on craft issues in the telling of the story. Craft issues can be solved with learning and study and putting a lot of words through your fingers (combined at the same time with the learning and study). But for this part, I want to talk about the lack of understanding by the reader of two major elements of commercial fiction… 1…THERE ARE READERS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORDS… In the early stages of writing, writers only focus on the words and…
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New Regular Workshop
Using Paradox in Your Fiction… This is a new regular workshop starting February 7th. It will be available as a regular workshop for at least six months. It is on Teachable. As we said last fall, we will be adding in a bunch of new regular workshops this year. This is the first. Here is the basic description… Learn how to use the concept of paradox in your fiction writing. Paradox pits two seemingly unrelated elements together, which by the very nature creates great stories and tension. Nothing in great fiction is ever what it seems. And in fiction, if it is, that is boring and boring is deadly to…
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Editing and Reading Observations… Part 8…
The Problems I Talked About in the First Parts… Are still the majority of why I pass on a story, or why a story does not hold me as a reader. No depth, information flow, wrong character and so on. But the last couple of days I found and remembered a couple of other things. Now, understand, there are no real rules in writing. If you are a skilled enough storyteller, you can make just about anything work for readers. But the key part of that is “skilled storyteller.” So really skilled writers can make these two problems work. Writing in Second Person… You know, the writer got so arty,…
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Last Day of Lifetime Sale…
All Lifetime Subscriptions Half Off… One More Day!!! Only lifetime subscriptions. Not any of the bundles or anything else. Just the five lifetime subscriptions. Use the code: LIFETIMESALE At half price, they are very good deals, especially the Lifetime Everything. And if you have another lifetime subscription, I can take a little more off that Everything price. Write me for details. February Regular Workshops Are Posted… See the list to the right. They start next Tuesday. Also the Writing Safe Mystery Stories special workshop second session has started today. FIFTY YEARS OF LEARNING… This year marks 50 years since I sold my first two short stories (and started selling a…