Creating the Most Engaging Environment--Working the "Container" of Your Story

Writing teachers often cite the trio of event, character, and setting:  major elements to keep track of in your manuscript.  This trio is key to any genre, memoir, fiction, or nonfiction.

All books have something happening, illustrated by scene or anecdote.  That's event.

There's always someone this event happens to, be it fictional character, real-life narrator, or reader.

And there's always

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Taking Along Your Writing: How to Keep Your Creativity Alive during Your Summer Vacation

I am packing my suitcases this week, wondering about where to fit my writing.  Clothes, check.  Great book, check.  Camera, check.  Teaching materials, check.  The pile is big, the suitcase is small.  Can I take my printout for the novel that's haunting my days and nights right now?  Will these characters, who are living with me every moment, fit in a side

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Lessons from the Movies--Planting and Returning Images to Create a Satisfying Ending

There's a place in every book where all the assembled objects begin to balance.  They have slowly come together through many pages and form a cohesive whole.

Of course, this is the end of the story.  It's supposed to be satisfying, even if it leaves us with questions and aches to know more.  It should never leave us confused, however.  All the elements brought into play during the book must be accounted for.

I find that ending a story, especially a book's story, is hard.  Every book I finish offers its own particular agony in its ending.  Endings leave me really concerned--what sleight of hand to perform that will bring delighted gasps from

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Four Levels of Learning--From Unconscious Incompetence to Unconscious Competence

I am sharing a post I wrote last summer, because my Madeline Island retreat is coming up again in July, and I remembered this wonderful experience we had there. If you're interested in learning more about the retreat, click here. One spot just opened up for the July 18-22 retreat and four spots are still open for the July 25-29 retreat this year.  Writers who went there last summer still write me about how their books suddenly came together, just from the supportive community and great atmosphere of the retreat.  It's hosted by Madeline Island School of the Arts, which provides lodging and most of the meals.  Our classroom is large and airy, there's plenty of writing time, and you get feedback for your work.  Feel free to join me--it's truly an amazing week.

At my book-writing retreat on Madeline Island (Lake Superior) last July, we were joined by a man who summered on the island. He was retired from a very successful sales career and as he was a last-minute addition to the group and hadn't taken my book-writing workshops before, I wondered how he would do.

One sunny morning midweek, the class was struggling with the learning curve of three-act structure. Suddenly Pete raised his hand with something

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Mixing Things Up--Another Look at How to Break out of Writer's Block

Alison McGhee, writing instructor and author of many wonderful novels including Shadow Baby and Rainlight, once taught a very effective exercise in a writing class I attended.

Lists were written on the whiteboard: people of different ages and different objects. She asked us to choose one specific from each list and

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Forest and Trees--Balancing the Long View and Short View as a Book Writer

When you’re writing a book, you have to simultaneously hover over the forest, while you're noticing the tiny leaves of each tree.  Being in two places at once, you must keep in mind your overall book’s focus and structure, how you want it to come together--at the same time as you work on a tiny detail of one scene or chapter.

It’s often hard to balance these two viewpoints well.  Most new book writers

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Hands-on storyboarding workshop--get feedback on your book idea

Weekend book workshop, August 6-7, Manchester, NH.  For more information click here.

Reading from the End--An Effective Way to Troubleshoot Your Writing

A student in my current online class had written a wonderful chapter for her book.  It was working almost perfectly:  the tension was high, the characters were strong, I could see the setting and it enhanced the emotion of the moment very effectively.  But there was something not quite there.

The writing needed some help, and at first I

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A Way to Study Outer and Inner Story in Your Favorite Books

Weaving the pathway of outer and inner story (what happens and what's the meaning of it) through a book requires knowing the different effect of each on the reader.  The best way to train yourself is to study outer and inner story in published books.

If you study books in different genres, you discover that each kind of book leans toward a different ratio of outer to inner story.  You can learn a lot about how to balance the two in your particular book.

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Balancing Outer and Inner Story in Your Book

Outer story is the foundation for all good books. Outer story grounds the reader in your material, whether you are writing about people, politics, or potatoes. It creates structure, a logical sequence of information or events, a believable time and place. It lets the story track for a reader like a

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