Florence Witkop's Blog, page 30
February 22, 2019
What creative writing exercises do you recommend for improving my writing ability?
What creative exercises do I recommend for improving writing ability? I’ve never done any actual creative exercises per se myself but I know several authors, including myself who, as part of our jobs, ended up fueling our creativity. Here are a few examples: One author is also owner/manager of a CSA. That’s Community Supported Agriculture, …
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February 19, 2019
How do you write realistic dialogue?
How do you write realistic dialogue? You let your characters speak for themselves. Let them carry on conversations as if you weren’t around to monitor and correct them. That means that sometimes they won’t speak correctly. In fact, it’s more than possible that they’ll seldom speak correctly because few real people do. When they’ve had …
February 18, 2019
Daughters! Wonderful!
Okay, this isn’t writing-related, but I can’t help but show off my two wonderful daughters, Sharon and Diane, who spent hours clearing way too much snow from the roof and clearing vent pipes clogged with snow. What would the world be without daughters?!
February 6, 2019
A Tea Party With Blue Flowers
Dear Reader, This is a cooperative story. The picture was a ‘prompt’ furnished by Winged Publications’ imprint, ForgetMeNotRomances that was posted for us to use as inspiration to write an impromptu story, each writing for 15 minutes and then turning the story over to the other. We think we did a pretty good job …
Where to begin a novel.
How do you begin a novel? Where, exactly, do you start? Anywhere you want, but traditionally there is a starting place. And it’s not where most beginning writers think it is. The beginning should be where the action begins, which is to say where the protagonist first begins to interact with the story. Most beginning …
January 31, 2019
Coming this spring! Watch for it!
THE MAN FROM YESTERDAY by Florence Witkop Published by Winged Publications, ForgetMeNotRomances What if you went for a walk and brought home a man from another era? Impossible? Sometimes the impossible happens. When Carey finds an unconscious man among the wildflowers on her farm, he awakens knowing only his name and what her farm was …
January 23, 2019
What’s the effect of using third person narrative?
What’s the effect of using third person narrative? There are three that I can think of offhand. Probably more but these are starters: Your reader can know everything you, the writer, wishes them to know about any or all of your characters. Their actions, thoughts, wishes, hopes, etc. Your storytelling isn’t limited to just what …
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December 27, 2018
The Cat Burglar
The eyes staring at me when I glanced up from the tomatoes I was weeding were part of a rather large animal and yellow, with horizontal slits. Scary. Maybe a tiger. No doubt about it, I was about to become dinner. Then I looked again, took a deep breath, and acknowledged what I should have …
Too many manuscripts
Someone recently asked how I organize differing versions of my current manuscript. Because manuscripts change. Stories change. And those changes mean manuscripts change and must be organized so a writer knows which is the best one. This is something I struggled with for a long time. Years. And more years. Until I figured it out. …
December 24, 2018
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas everyone! And a Happy New Year to you all!
