Follow your favorite blogs!

Bloglovin' helps you follow the blogs you read by letting you know when they update.

Sign up »
Wordplay: Helping Writers Become Authors
wordplay-kmweiland.blogspot.com
28
Features tips and essays about the writing life to enlighten and encourage other writers. Wordplay was created to help other writers understand the ins and outs of the craft and the psychology behind the inspiration.
#47496 in All

Would Your Story Benefit From a Distant Narrator?

This week’s video shows how F. Scott Fitzgerald’s beloved classic The Great Gatsby utilizes a surprisingly distant narrator to transform his story. Video Transcript: One of the reasons readers love b...

3 h ago

How Routines Save (and Ruin) Your Writing

Can you name one thing that could harm your writing if you do it—and if you don’t? Writing “routines” might not be the first answer to pop to mind. But nothing affects our writing more than the routi...

3 days ago

Creating a Book Series: Great Idea or Think Again?

This guest post is by Fiona Ingram. Developing a book series is both rewarding and taxing for the author. It is not an exact science and neither is it a guaranteed road to writing success. Many autho...

5 days ago

Don’t Betray Your Character in Your Climax

This week’s video uses Cecil B. DeMille’s classic film The Ten Commandments to discuss the problems of focusing on spectacle rather than character in the third act. Video Transcript: In the posts on ...

23 may 12

Why Self-Conscious Writers Are Doomed

Who do you write for? At first glance, that may seem like a silly question—or even a question that doesn’t need answering at all. But it’s one worth not just thinking about, but focusing on every sin...

20 may 12

Visceral Reactions: Emotional Pay Dirt or Fast Track to Melodrama?

This guest post is by Angela Ackerman.  Are visceral reactions emotional pay dirt or a fast track to melodrama? The answer of course is: both! But let’s back up the cliché truck. The word “...

18 may 12

Are You a Genre Flip-Flopper?

This week’s video explains why guiding reader expectations through proper framing and foreshadowing is vital to a successful story. Video Transcript: Most likely, you already understand the benefits ...

16 may 12

The Secrets of Story Structure, Pt. 12: Your Questions Answered

Because of its fixed nature, story structure, once learned, is easy to grasp. However, it’s also a subject that inspires endless questions. A few weeks ago, while I was finishing up the last of the p...

13 may 12

Becoming Your Character

This guest post is by G.G. Vandagriff. Can butterflies do somersaults? Where did that thought come from? Have you ever noticed that just before you fall asleep, your mind leaps from ordered thought i...

11 may 12

The Fine Line Between Insulting and Bewildering Readers

This week’s video talks about the author’s need to balance on the narrow line between treating readers like they’re idiots and assuming they should know things they can’t. Video Transcript: How many ...

09 may 12

The Secrets of Story Structure, Pt. 11: The Resolution

The resolution is always a bittersweet moment. You’ve reached the end of the story. You’ve climbed the mountain, and now you can plant your flag of completion at its peak. But as the finale of all yo...

06 may 12

How to Get Feedback on Your Writing (and Sort the Good from the Bad)

One of the fastest ways to progress as a writer is to get feedback. However many books you read, however many conferences you attend, direct advice about your work-in-progress will let you see exactl...

04 may 12

Are Your Scene Breaks Rude?

This week’s video points out how a simple failure on the author’s part can easily cause confusion among readers. Video Transcript: Aside from making certain our chapter and scene breaks are scintilla...

02 may 12

The Secrets of Story Structure, Pt. 10: The Climax

And, now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for! The climax is the pièce de résistance of our gourmet meal of a novel. When we wheel out the climax and lift the serving dish’s gleaming silver lid, th...

29 apr 12

Rock Your Writing With Checklists

I recently read a blog post about a husband and wife who took their RV to a dealer/repair shop to have a few things fixed. When it comes time to leave, the husband jumps in the truck and the wife sta...

27 apr 12

Does Your Story Need Subplots?

This week’s video analyzes the purpose and necessity of subplots. Does your story have too many or not enough? Video Transcript: We’re always hearing about subplots. But what exactly are they? And do...

25 apr 12

The Secrets of Story Structure, Pt. 9: The Third Act

The third act is the moment we’ve all been waiting for—readers, writers, and characters alike. This final section of the story is the point. It’s what we’ve been building up to all this time. If the ...

22 apr 12

How to Create Distinctive Character Voices

Did you ever have those Shakespeare quizzes in high school in which your evil teacher gave you a list of random quotations from the play you were studying and asked you to identify the speaker? I rem...

20 apr 12

Is Your Character Talking the Talk Instead of Walking the Walk?

This week’s video points out the problem of too much talking and not enough doing within your story. Video Transcript: In real life, most people have a tendency to talk about what they’re going to do...

18 apr 12

The Secrets of Story Structure, Pt. 8: The Second Half of the Second Act

Now that we’ve passed the midpoint, things are starting to heat up in our story. The second half of the second act is where your plot really starts popping. Your main character caps the dramatic even...

15 apr 12

How to Write a Novel in Two Sentences

All right, fine—you’ll need more than two sentences, most likely. But the title of this post does actually have some merit, as I am in the process of finishing my second novel using an approach I lik...

13 apr 12

How to Show the Passage of Time in Your Novel

This week’s video discusses two ways in which authors can trip their readers up with large chunks of passing time—and how to avoid them. Video Transcript: The passage of time is one thing all st...

11 apr 12

The Secrets of Story Structure, Pt. 7: The Midpoint

Halfway through our stories, something marvelous happens. There we are, minding our own business, toiling along in the seemingly endless desert of the second act, when—whap! bang! shazam!—everything ...

08 apr 12

Signs Your Character Is Wasting His Potential

This week’s video points out the potential pitfall that occurs when authors talk big about their characters’ interesting traits, but never make good by using them within the story. Video Transcript: ...

04 apr 12

The Secrets of Story Structure, Pt. 6: The First Half of the Second Act

Every segment of a story offers its own challenges, but perhaps none leaves writers more bewildered than the second act. Beginnings and endings are tough to get right, but at least we have a checklis...

01 apr 12

When Arguments Are a Good Thing: Conflict in Dialogue

Today, I’m honored to be hosted on Romance University. Be sure to stop by the blog to read my guest post “When Arguments Are a Good Thing: Conflict in Dialogue.” Below is a sneak peek: Most authors a...

30 mar 12

When Not to Tell Your Characters Backstory

This week’s video compares two movie adaptations of The Scarlet Pimpernel to discover how we can best convey our characters’ backstories. Video Transcript: In other recent posts, we’ve discussed the ...

28 mar 12

The Secrets of Story Structure, Pt. 5: Inciting Event and Key Event

The first quarter of your story hinges upon two important and irreversible moments: the inciting event and the key event. I’ve saved our discussion of inciting and key events until this late into the...

25 mar 12

Do Authors Need to Travel for Research?

This week, I’m pleased to present a post by multi-pubbed author Sanjida O’Connell, author of the newly released historical Sugar Island. Today, she broaches the controversial question of whether or n...

23 mar 12

Do You Know the Two Ingredients in a Perfect Ending?

This week’s video talks about how authors must magically combine inevitability and unexpectedness to give readers a satisfying finale. Video Transcript: Whether your story is a tragedy, a comedy, a “...

21 mar 12

You are no longer following . Undo?