Dawn Blair's Blog, page 206

Dragons of Wellsdeep – Pages 18 &19 edit

Remember my post from last Thursday about balancing your posts. Yeah, these pages show my definite weakness for setting. Fortunately, that’s why we edit our manuscript!

Once again we’re in the “white room” and there’s a lot of talking. It’s not all talking, so that’s good, but wouldn’t you like to know what Sundancer looks like. I do, but right now it’s in my head. I have so got to get it out.

Another thing I’ve alluded to, but never really said is that they have speed healing. This wou...

Have you found your writing flow?

In last Sunday’s post, I mentioned how my first drafts are heavy on the action and dialogue and include minimal setting details. I didn’t figure this out overnight. In fact, I didn’t even figure it out myself. My critique partners mentioned it when they asked why I didn’t write screenplays. Both of them were very aware that I saw my stories in a cinematic fashion and I do; I see everything as if I’m watching a movie. They told me that I should stick with my strengths and let a set designer an...

Dragons of Wellsdeep – pages 16 & 17 edit

We’re starting to get into a scene that was very easy for me to write. I’m starting to feel like I have a good handle on the characters, though what Moonhunter is up to is still a little vague and unclear. It’s developing and that’s good. I’m still also waiting to get his motivation, but I trust that it will fall into place; I’ve been giving it a lot of thought still.

In some ways, writing this is feeling a lot like writing The Loki Adventures. I don’t see the whole journey, only the nex...

When Your Details Stops the Story

Beginning and novice writers fall prey to this clever little deceiver when they suddenlyrealize that they hadn’t included any details in a scene. They start poppingthem in without thinking about their placement or they rush back during a rewrite and drop them in like they are sprinkling in raindrops. These haphazard detailssmear across the page and take the characters hostage at knife point to completely stop the story. Here’s a scene I see way too often:

Mary jumped out of the car and ran in...

Dragons of Wellsdeep – pages 14 & 15 edit

Well, there’s not really a whole lot to say about these two pages except that my pronoun problem which I spoke about in last week’s post has gotten so much worse. I’m still not sure how to rewrite this other than to slow it down and add setting and narrative, but that will come.

Because this is a repeat problem, I really don’t have a lot to say about these two pages. I hope your own writing is coming along well.

Don’t forget: if you’re having any questions on your own work, patterns that...

What’s in a name?

At one time I would have thought this to be obvious advice. But this tip comes directly from a contest I judged. I talk about it (and a lot of other things) in my book, The Write Edit. The name has been changed here, but the example is real.

Let’s say you have a character and his name is Jimmy John, but everyone refers to him JJ, don’t have his mother call him Jimmy, JJ, and Jimmy John in the same conversation in a scene. Why? Aren’t you trying to let the reader know the character’s name in d...

Special Offer

Today I have a special offer for my blog readers.

The last couple of signings and shows I’ve done, I’ve had people so excited because they picked up a copy of The Three Books and wanted to get the next two book that are currently available in the series (there will be 5 books total when I’m done). I realized that I didn’t really have a place where people could purchase these together, so I set it up on my Zibbet store.

Right now, you can get both books directly from me for $25.00 plus shipping. Because I love my blog readers, if you use the promo code SK4BLOG you can get free shipping. That’s right! Autographed copies of Manifest the Magic and To Birth a Destiny right from the author for only $25. Act quickly — this coupon code is only good through August 10, 2015.

Happy reading!

Dragons of Wellsdeep – pages 12 & 13 edit

The drafts on toparethe original manuscript pagesas it has been written. On the bottom aremy edit drafts with my handwritten comments.

I found page 12 surprisingly clean, but again there is a lot of dialogue. Still, there are some actions that can be cleared up. This would also be a good page to insert more setting if I found that I needed some room. I’ve found that if I come across a scene where additional dialogue or action can be added, then the scene wasn’t pulling it’s weight in the...

What Had Been Intended

Now that you’ve seen all the progress paintings that I did under the working title A Cloudy Start (which is now titled Permissions), I want to show you what I had really intended on doing. About halfway through painting that piece, I realized I’d gotten way off track, so I wanted to do another, smaller, just so that I could really ingrain what I’d done wrong (well, maybe not wrong, but certainly had a happy accident with). Here’s the piece I did:

Moonlight Night #4315007
4×4 on wrapped canvas
Dawn Blair ©2015

Yep, it was supposed to be more like that. But, like I said, happy accident.I am kind of intrigued with how my “castle ruins” really look like three people sitting on a knoll staring up at the moon,.Another happy accident?

I might have to try this one in a larger size. Let me know what you think.

Manuscript Mechanics: Italics vs. Underline

Welcome to the showdown between italics and underlines.

Since my last couple of posts have been deep, I thought I’d go for something a little more technical on the manuscript preparation side of things.

I remember when I was writing when I was growing up. I used an old brown Smith Corona typewriter. If I was really lucky, my mother would let me use her old greet IBM typewriter. I also remember the stern advice that came from the writing magazines: don’t use italics; always underline things yo...