Will Weaver's Blog, page 2

A Question About Your Novel?

Why? For what reason are you writing it? The subject is no small matter. Freud maintained that we do things for one or more of five reasons: “honor, power, fame, riches, and the love of women.” (Let’s just say ‘love’.) None of these reasons are necessarily wrong-headed, but there are better ones. How about joy? […]

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Restarting Your Novel

Let’s say a good chunk of your novel is done. But then real life catches up with you. Family, work, health– any of the zillion reasons aligned against sustained, unbroken writing time. Or maybe you just need to set it aside. In the first draft you’ve’ve discovered some things that need more thought. Your plot […]

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When Is It Plagiarism?

Recently The New Yorker magazine ran an extended piece called “Unreliable Narrator” (February 11, 2019), in which it takes best-selling author Dan Mallory to task for (among other things) the close similarities of his new novel The Woman in the Window with Paula Hawkins’s The Girl on the Train, not to say the film, Copy Cat, a thriller […]

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The Commencement Address

I recently gave the commencement address at Bemidji State University in northern Minnesota. On a perfect spring day, 800+ graduates and 3500 family and friends packed the Sanford Events Center. Robes and colors, marching and music, but eventually we platform guests took our seats that looked down on a sea of people. Gradually, after this […]

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Too Much Plot? (Nerdy)

Question: when does too much plot overwhelm a good story?  Answer: when a “twist” is needed for resolution. The plot twist is one of the many fiction techniques in your writer’ tool bag, but it’s one to be wary of. A twist can work splendidly. A twist fail spectacularly. A successful examples might be found […]

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Too Much Plot? (For Writing Nerds)

Question: when does too much plot overwhelm a good story?  Answer: when a “twist” is needed for resolution. The plot twist is one of the many fiction techniques in your writer’ tool bag, but it’s one to be wary of. A twist can work splendidly. A twist fail spectacularly. A successful examples might be found […]

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“Don’t Make a Scene”

You’ve heard that line. Maybe it was a parent speaking to a child behaving badly. Maybe it was in a public place where a couple was working out a problem. One begs the other, “Please don’t make a scene!” Ah, but making a scene is exactly what we do in fiction writing. Scene-by-scene writing is […]

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The Courage To Write

At every writing workshop I teach, I learn something. Or relearn it. Recently with a group of twenty earnest adults in a small library room I was reminded of something I had forgotten: it take courage to write. Courage to put down the first sentence. Courage to keep going. Courage to share what you’ve written […]

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What’s Your Prose Style?

You’re a writer.  So let’s get geeky and talk about sentences.  Below in bold is one of mine.  It’s about as long and weighty as mine get, but it’s for a nonfiction piece. I’ve been invited to contribute a chapter for an anthology centered on a fairly interesting (if geeky) question: where does the American […]

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A Leg To Stand On

As our American political system devolves toward a useless institution that pleases no one, American publishing may not be far behind. The New York Times recently spoke to the matter of publishing houses employing “sensitivity readers.”  These are an extra layer of editorial scrutiny aiming to spot potentially offending language, allusions, metaphors, et al–anything that […]

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