Natasha Deen's Blog, page 57

Change “report” to “manuscript” & This is My Week.

http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/1992-08-03/

Worth Reading: Winds of L'Acadie By Lois Donovan

 

I’m always impressed by authors who write historical and Lois Donovan’s novel is no exception. What makes this book truly remarkable is the mix of modern and past.  I think she did an amazing job of mixing the two timelines and more importantly, giving readers a historical overview of the Acadian Deportation without overwhelming us with information.

The novel is intense at times (like the scene where Sarah takes on two English soldiers)  and heartbreaking, but it also has a...

Why Television is Great Research

Because you get amazing lines like these from Last Resort:

“Sometimes your enemy is the guy standing between you and going home.” and (my favorite), “That’s how they break you, they get you where it hurts most, but that’s their mistake because that’s where you’re strongest.”

Antagonists Don’t Have To Be Evil–Writing Characters

One of the big things for writers to get is this: the hero is heroic, but their nemesis doesn’t have to be evil. The best way to create an antagonist is thinking of your characters as people with different agendas, not thinking one is “good” and the other is “bad.”

If your hero’s journey is facing and surviving the snow storm, that’s awesome, and I think we can all agree that nature isn’t “evil” it just is.  The snow has an agenda—to fall—and the hero has an agenda: to survive…

Or in my...

More Thanks

To Weinlos & Ormsby schools, thanks so much for letting me come out and hang out.I loved our chats about writing!!

Thank You, Amisk School

Thank you SO MUCH to the amazing staff and students at the Amisk school’s APPLE Center. I so appreciated your generosity and that was one of the best lunches, ever!

Long live aliens and litter box bombs!

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Visit Me @ Teen Book Connection

I'm chatting about weird animal facts and True Grime 2!

Worth Reading–Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat

There’s good info in here for both novel & screenwriters, and the book is written in an easy style with lots of examples.

Friday=A Good Time with Friends!

 

Nothing says a good time like lunch with the girls. Thanks for the giggles, Kim Grabas & Linda Margaret

Writing Light

Having quite the time with my current Work in Progress (WIP). Luke Parks, the hero is not my usual kind of character. He’s quieter, more introspective, and I find I have to fight the urge to describe setting/characters/plot in a way that contradicts him. He’s not overly descriptive—he is, to my writing bane—a telling character, not a showing character, and it’s driving me crazy.  At the same time, it’s a really great exercise. How to showcase an understated character and tell his story w...