by Susanne | Sep 12, 2017 | Writing craft
In my constant reading about and studying the craft of writing, I had an epiphany sometime over the summer. I can’t remember where it occurred, what I was reading, but I finally understood the difference between STORY and PLOT. STORY: Essentially, what happens,...
by Susanne | Sep 7, 2017 | Random thoughts, Writing craft, Writing life
They just. won’t. let me. alone. All those thoughts about writing that get translated into bizarre dreams. Last night I dreamt that I was in a house where I’d invited some very unlikely people to live with me. I discovered it was a bad idea, so I decided...
by Susanne | Sep 5, 2017 | Writing craft, Writing life
The idea of structure in a novel used to scare me. I had images of an ossified underpinning that hampered creativity, interrupted the flow of prose and character development. In the past few years, I’ve decided to overcome that fear. I realized that it’s...
by Susanne | Sep 3, 2017 | Writing craft, Writing life
I’ve discovered I can’t start writing a novel—even if I know how it should begin and end—until I find the narrative thread. Characters can develop on the page as I write, even plot to a certain extent, but I have to have a basic idea of what’s going...
