Elizabeth Spann Craig's Blog, page 242

Setting the Mood

Usually my son gives me a play-by-play of what he's working on at school.

But the past couple of week, his Language Arts class has been concentrating entirely on writing to prep for a standardized exam. And somehow he neglected to tell me until a couple of days ago. :)

I guess he thinks I'll be entirely too interested. He's right. Writing, I think, is hard to teach, and I'm curious how people approach it.

In preparation for this exam, the school had each of the six 7th grade English...

Tugging

What happens if you have two things—or two facets of a character's personality—that are equally important to the protagonist but conflict with each other?

We could use the tug between a character's work and his family—and a character who loves both things equally. Suddenly we increase his work demands and his family needs simultaneously. How will he respond? What kinds of choices will he make and how will it change the plot? Maybe he misses his shot at promotion when he spends more...

On Tiptoeing

Living in Charlotte, North Carolina, I'm—surprisingly—one of the few Southerners I know here. I'm surrounded by neighbors who've moved from the North for (mainly) banking jobs.

In the small Southern town I grew up in, we would have called these folks Yankees. Not in a derogatory way, but more as an explanation. ("She couldn't understand a word I said. She's a Yankee." Or maybe: "A big water bug landed right next to her on the table and she screamed bloody murder! She's not used to bugs...

Problem Solving

Since our novels are all supposed to have tons of conflict in them (major, minor, and in between), our protagonists need to use their problem solving skills…usually.

In real life, I think our personalities have a lot to do with the way we approach our problems.

Some people panic, some people shut down, some avoid problems as much as possible, some people deny there is a problem, some attack problems head-on.

Some people have a methodical approach to solving problems, some have a...

Twitterific

Once again, I'm posting writing links that I previously posted to Twitter.

The idea of doing this isn't to overwhelm anyone---I'm overwhelmed looking at this list myself! But I thought that if I kept track of these writing links in a searchable database (you can search my blog on the top left of the page) then maybe we can access some of these helpful links by topic, when we need to?

Helpful writing sites: http://dld.bz/a5t2 @gracefuldoe about 1 hour ago

10 of the best breakfasts...

Dropping Clues About Our Characters

So I was in the grocery store….again….(must make more lists) and was nearly run down by a little guy pushing a shopping buggy that was bigger than he was.

"Benjamin! Watch our for the mommy!" fussed his mother before apologizing to me.

She kept on scolding, "Honey, you can't just go running through the store with the cart! You could have hurt this mommy."

I was—quickly—walking away by this point, but I was struck by the fact that the woman had pegged me, twice, as a mother.

As far as...

Getting Past "Stuck"

Today I'd like to welcome Alan Orloff to the blog. Alan is a fellow Midnight Ink author with a new release--Diamonds for the Dead. He's also writing a new series for Midnight Ink--The Last Laff series. Thanks so much for coming by today, Alan!

Thanks Elizabeth, for inviting me to guest post today. I love your blog and I totally agree, Mystery Writing Is Murder.

Sometimes, the words don't seem to flow. And sometimes, even when the words are appearing on your computer screen, they seem dull a...

And I'm Even at *Another* Place Today...

Actually, I'm at 3 different blogs today. :)

So, let me go ahead and link to them all, here. My post is up at A Good Blog is Hard to Find, where I'm talking about stock characters today--why they're useful and putting a fresh spin on them.

I'm also on today at Mystery Lovers' Kitchen, where I give some spring cleaning tips for the kitchen (y'all know I'm currently obsessed with spring cleaning.)

In addition, I'm at This Business of Writing for a look at online platforms and why it's important t...

Platforms—Why They're Important and How to Develop One

It's important to have an online "home base"—an established place to call your own—even if you're an unpublished or aspiring writing.

To find out why you should develop an online presence, and how to do it, please pop over and visit me today at C. Patrick Schulze's The Business of Writing blog.

Tomorrow, I'm hosting my fellow Midnight Ink author and friend Alan Orloff to the blog. Please join us!

Making Do

I'm going to the Malice Domestic conference at the end of this month in Washington, D.C.

This has put me in a tizzy. Conferences and other types of public appearances do that to me. I'm on a panel, too. :)

Now, suddenly, I'm done with various deadlines (until revision deadlines come in) and I've got Malice coming up in just a few weeks.

Bookmarks!!!

I needed bookmarks. I've had postcards and business cards. But I needed bookmarks.

I've needed bookmarks for a while. I'm in a...