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Questions for writers
March 28, 2024 in thanet-creative-writers by Matthew Brown
Last week, at Thanet Creative’s Writers’ session, we brainstormed prompts for writers. The idea of these prompts was to inspire fresh reflection on your writing as well as to give us writers interesting ways to talk about our writing.
Heaven knows, that writers never want to talk about their writing.
You can find the questions on The Muse of Lsat Resort. New questions come out every Thursday.
The easiest way to fix a broken story according to Jed Herne
February 2, 2024 in editing-your-work by Guest Writer
Jed Herne breaks his solution down into three stages:
- Character arc
- The three Ps
- Theme
Character Arc
There are five aspects to a character arc that Herne addresses:
- What do they want?
- What do they need?
- What is the lie they believe?
- What is the truth they must come to accept?
- What is their ghost?
The Three Ps
- Promise
- Progress
- Payoff
Theme
The moral core of your story that characters must either accept or reject. This does not have to be explicit.
First Writers’ Meet and Critique Evening of 2024
January 10, 2024 in events by Matthew Brown
This Thursday, come along to meet local writers, have your work critiqued or enjoy a drink at a lovely pub with great food. Large car park and buses stop outside.
We are usually at table 8 in The Wheatsheaf Margate. The friendly staff will be happy to point us out.
All writers, all skill levels, all genres. We aim to be a friendly safe space where exploration of writing and the writing life are our only focus.
For work to be critiqued please bring 4 to 5 copies of 3 to 4 A4 pages, ideally double-spaced with 12-point font (or bigger). Other writers can then write feedback on the page next to your text.
Mark yourself as going on Facebook.
Neil Gaiman on the antidote to rejection
October 11, 2023 in being-a-writer by Matthew Brown
In this video, best-selling author Neil Gaiman talks about rejection and how to handle it.
My problem with “was”
August 17, 2023 in editing-your-work by Matthew Brown
The word “was” is an easy fit when writing in the past tense. Along with “had” it is easy to use the word so hard and often that it becomes a distraction.
While “was” is a good word and sometimes the right word, there are many times (such as in the example above) when a rewrite will produce a better passage. These edits – to remove “was” – can be hard. You have used the correct word. Why does it need to change?
Once a reader notices how often the writer uses “was” every further example is going to be a distraction.
Furthermore, the effort to find another way to say the same thing can give your writing more variety, a stronger voice, and more flow. That said, I find these edits hard.
I have added “was” reduction to my editing process. This step can be a lot of time-consuming work. The end product is almost always better and more enjoyable to read. At least I think so.
The way I approach this edit is to use “Find” (Ctrl+F) type “was” (or whatever word I am reducing) and then hit “Find All”. That highlights all examples of the word. I then scroll through looking for clusters as in the example above. The more I can see on the page, the more urgently I need to re-word.
Do you have any over used words that you try and cull in the editing process? Tell me about yours in the comments.
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