Master and Servant: My Outline and Me
My classmates called it my spreadsheet. It was a little embarrassing that to write a novel I needed a chart. 3 columns x 76 rows = 228 fields of information that I made myself fill in. I didn’t want to…
Category: Revision
Voice Lessons for Writers
My daughter first sang in public when she was three years old. I can still see her in a dark-flowered dress, fearlessly belting out “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” in a husky voice that someone once referred to as a whiskey…
The Secrets to Becoming a Writer
Stories, with their powers to transport us to distant lands and imagine ourselves as others, are magical. But I’ll tell you a secret. The writing of stories is not magic. Writers are regular people. They are regular people who are…
And So We’ve Come to the End (of the year, that is)
You won’t find a Best of/Worst of post over here at Dead Darlings headquarters. We’re too tired from writing and revisioning and meeting class deadlines. Instead we decided to toast the new year by asking our writing colleagues to lift…
Drunk Texting My Novel: When ‘Baby I Miss You Please Come Back What Went Wrong Between Us We Used to Have So Much Fun Together and BTW Are You Horny Tonight?’ is a Summary of Your Entire Revision Process.
You are living the dream. People like your novel-in-progress. Some even love it. You certainly love it, and know deep down that it will always love you back. There’s just one problem: Trusted Reader (who also happens to be a…
Fear and Friendly Fire
(This post originally appeared on Grub Street Daily). Many of us have a number one cultural issue that causes sleep deprivation, countless battles with friends and family or even, in my case, compels you to take on the daunting task…