Gail Carson Levine's Blog, page 9
January 13, 2021
Question Grab Bag
On February 13, 2020, Samantha Pixley wrote, What do you do when you feel like your story is all over the map? My current WIP is a lot of great ideas that aren’t coming together well – 100 pages in, I’m daunted by the idea that my story isn’t capturing the right feeling that I’m after and I might have to scrap it and start over. I feel almost like I’m losing the essence of my story. Any thoughts on what I should do?
How do you deal with wordiness? I’m 100 pages into my WIP and not even halfwa...
December 30, 2020
Idea Worry
Happy New Year!
I happened across this interesting website that you might enjoy noodling around in. The page I’m linking to reveals the difficulty level of any word: https://datayze.com/word-analyzer?word=unstop. Some of the results are curious. For example, dogged is considered elementary/middle school level, but doggedness is graduate level. Another page may come in handy for naming characters (and children). It’s the Baby Name Uniqueness Analyzer. There’s also a Nickname Finder.
On Febr...
December 16, 2020
Creating Wind in the Doldrums
Here’s a little grammar rant, which I hope I haven’t delivered before: Whom is dying, and I am grieving. The poor pronoun is no longer heard on the airwaves I listen to. I don’t see it in newspapers. In its style guide, an important publisher I know of instructs writers not to use the word in books for children.
English is a living language, which means usage changes. I favor that. I cheer for it. But I’m worried that the moribund state of whom is more than the loss of a word, because people ...
December 2, 2020
Blog Business
I almost forgot to post! Thank you, Life Means Books, for reminding me!
Congratulations to those of you who raced with NaNoWriMo! How did it go? Please tell us your challenges and triumphs and what you learned along the way.
On November 20, 2020, Christie wrote, I recently picked up your book, Writer to Writer, for my daughter during the pandemic home time. I recently realized I could use a little inspiration as well. I started a business last year that has now moved completely online. Wit...
November 18, 2020
Lights! Camera! ACTION!
To you who are competing in NaNoWriMo, congratulations on finishing more than two weeks! I’m rooting for you! If you have a minute, tell us your obstacles and triumphs. Questions are welcome too.
On January 24, 2020, Pleasure Writer wrote, I have a really hard time writing action scenes. They turn out so awkward and most of the time I feel like they’re boring to read, which is obviously not the goal for an action scene. Any suggestions on how to better engage my readers in the story?
Two w...
November 4, 2020
On the Links
Many of you have started NaNoWriMo. I wish you the best. May your fingers never flag. May your dreams–if you sleep–deliver scenes and characters. Put them in! May your brain send ideas: the surprising, the wild, even the ordinary–no judgment, just so they generate words. Go, writers, go!
On January 21, 2020, Writing Cat Lover wrote, I was wondering, how do you link things? Like, I, as a pantser, always have trouble with the plot – and it seems that everything is separate. Any tips on linking ...
October 21, 2020
What Villains Do
Good luck and courage! to all who will be starting NaNoWriMo before I post again. I admire you!
On January 13, 2020, Chechu wrote, Sorry if I write something wrong: English is not my first language. I am from Argentina, I speak Spanish. I have a question. I’ve started a novel but I’ve got stuck.
I’ve got the two MCs defined and a less detailed image of other characters. I have an idea of the conflict. I know what the MCs want and, of course, is related to the conflict. I want the character...
October 7, 2020
Burnt!
On January 3, 2020, Maddie wrote, Hi, Ms. Levine! I’ve got a bit of a long-winded question. Several years ago, when I was an exceptionally awkward young teenager, you were kind enough to answer a few of my questions. Now I’ve graduated college and am slowly but surely overcoming my writer’s burnout (I’ve got an anthropology degree, so I did almost nothing but write for 4 years). I’ve finally decided that I want to try to write fiction seriously again! But I have a problem that I can’t figure out...
September 23, 2020
Poetic Considerations
On January 1, 2020, Alyce wrote, How do you write songs and poetry? I’ve tried, and if it’s not a haiku I can’t manage. I just can’t seem to get more than a couple rhyming lines out, usually not even that. I can memorize poetry just fine, and make any rhymes I want (one of my characters blurts out anything that rhymes with the word she’s actually thinking of). I just can’t make those rhymes make sense most of the time. Or if I can, they don’t come out the way I want, and they don’t pass the mess...
September 9, 2020
Tangled!
For the word nerds among us, I was wondering if lightbulb/light bulb is one word or two: https://sfwriter.com/2009/02/how-many-dictionaries-does-it-take-to.html#:~:text=The%20American%20Heritage%20English%20Dictionary,one%20word%3A%20%22lightbulb.%22
On December 30, 2019, Writing Ballerina wrote, Do you ever go to write, but find you can’t untangle the jumble in your head that is ideas and things you need to fix and character arcs and subplots and everything else? So then you either can’t wri...
