The Blood-Red Pencil: Sharp and pointed observations about good writing

Are you interested in starting a writing workshop? If so, check out my latest commentary at The Blood-Red Pencil, “Components of a Good Writing Workshop” [link].

What are those components? Well, I discuss three: a great moderator, an appropriate size for the workshop, and rules for the workshop; however, feel free to read my commentary and post your own experiences with writing workshops.

We learn by sharing with one another.

“Components of a Good Writing Workshop” [link]

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Something I read last night made me think about the Writers Boot Camp course I offer online.

McKee states, “Of the total creative effort represented in a finished work, 75 percent or more of a writer’s labor goes into designing a story.  Who are these characters?  What do they want?  Why do they want it?  How do they go about getting it?  What stops them?  What are the consequences?  Finding the answers to these grand questions and shaping them into story is our overwhelming creative task.

“Designing story tests the maturity and insight of the writer, his knowledge of society, nature, and the human heart.  Story demands both vivid imagination and powerful analytic thought.”

Those questions that McKee states are paramount to my WBC class.  They are important to the development of a strong story, of a story with a developed character, a solid situation, and a plot that moves toward a satisfying, “real” ending.

I, like McKee, care about the STORY, and if you’re a real writer, someone who’s doing this for the love of writing and with the desire to better your craft, then you will care about the STORY, too.

And speaking of story, I wrote ten pages to my screenplay, Saying No to the Big O.  Current page count:  44.

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Becoming a Lifelong Learner of the Craft of Writing
By author, editor, educator Shon Bacon aka ChickLitGurrl™

The Write Life for You is a series of articles on the writing craft. Past articles have focused on building character, developing a solid plot, and harnessing a writing style. In the first article of the new year, I look at CAMPING VS. MARCHING IN STORIES.

Camping vs. Marching

This month, I’m talking about camping vs. marching. Before I pursued my MFA degree, I knew nothing about this “concept”.

Many writers, for fear of losing readers, will explain everything in their story, not realizing that they will definitely lose their readers this way. So, how do writers tell us everything? They might tell us everything a character has on, explain every piece of furniture that’s in a room, detail an entire conversation from beginning to end, relay every minute feeling that comes through the narrator’s mind, and bring us into every sight, smell, taste, sound, touch that occurs within a story – all in the name of making the story feel real to the reader. In the end, this may make the reader so full off “stuff” that’s unimportant to the actual story that he/she may close the book and find a less tedious (or as I like to say “less chewy”) book to read.

Want to learn MORE about camping vs. marching and how to know when to do both?

Then head to APOOOBOOKS.COM to read my latest article in The Write Life for You series!

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