Category Archives: Writing

Stein: How to Write Flashbacks

If your character is as deep as he should be, that means he’s going to have a backstory.  A character’s history is  integral to what he (or she!) will do throughout the course of your plot.  Sometimes it’s handy for your readers to know firsthand what happened in your character’s past so that they can […]

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A week of writing

The reason you haven’t heard much out of me this week is becuase I finally got myself into gear!  I feel that I am finally on a roll with Into the Flames, and I’ve written about six thousand words since Tuesday.  Yup.  I’m going to give myself a pat on the back now.  And because […]

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In a land of make-believe that don’t believe in me

Happy National Grammar Day! I still don’t have a book review for you this week.  I’m two hundred or so pages away from the end of Fall of Giants.  So hopefully by Monday I’ll be done and have some insightful words about Ken Follet’s latest novel.  Also, due to this new postion at work, I’ve […]

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Jump Off a Cliff

Okay, I’m going to admit it. I’ve been a bad, bad girl the past few weeks when it comes to my own writing. So today I’m going to share a little peice of advice that I really need to take and apply to my own life. Stephen King says, “The scariest moment is always just […]

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Travels of a Book Worm

I wanted to go to Egypt To sail the Nile, feel the heat on the sand I wanted to climb and rappel a steep mountain Sink to the depths of the ocean to see the octopi I wanted to walk the length of the Great Wall of China Explore an American battleship and then a […]

Posted in Writing

Endings and Beginnings

I finished reading Stein on Writing. Last week Stein spurred me to rewrite my culminating scene with more tension. I’ve also talked a bit about how he inspired the ultimate conflict in my novel. This weekend I spent an hour working on a new first paragraph. Stein’s last section in his book was on the art of […]

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The Clash of Wants

I’m probably going to be talking a lot about Sol Stein in the next few weeks. Sorry, I’ve been reading him to buff up on my editing skillzzzzz, so please bear with me. Sol Stein is a self-celebrated writer and editor, and I don’t think that his own hype is unwarranted. He’s got some great […]

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Tension in Writing

Sol Stein writes this is in his chapter on tension: “Our instinct as human beings is to provide answers, to ease tenion. As writers our job is the opposite, to create tension and not dispel it immediatly….A common fault I’ve observed is that the writer creates a pressing problem for a character and then immediatly […]

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A New Day, a New Blog

I feel that a new blog deserves some new words to announce its arrival.  Over here at Stormy Night Publishing we’re going to be looking at what makes a “good” book and ways we can hold ourselves to those standards.  As I’ve been reading Stein on Writing, I realize that I know a lot of […]

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>Thoughts on the Short Story

> Have you ever read “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway? I read it when I was in college, and I didn’t really like it, but it is a story that has since stuck with me. A short story is typically defined as a “snap shot” in time. Just one small moment captured forever […]

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