Almost everyone thinks they know how to write a screenplay. Weve all heard someone watching TV saying I could write a better script than that!
A Beginner’s Guide to Writing a Novel
What makes it hard is not writing itself but how people make it hard than it really is.
A Different Way To Write Your First Novel
If youve always wanted to write a novel, but found the traditional structured process too frightening or overwhelming, maybe your imagination works in a more organic fashion like mine. In that case, start with your main character and the idea the character gives you for the plot. Then close your eyes, grab your notebook or computer, and watch the main character. Sooner or later she or he will begin talking and moving around. When that happens, start writing! I guarantee what…
Breathe Life Into Your Writing
Have you ever read a passage and felt the breath of life, then was too speechless to describe it? Thats writing at its best. The method for creating such a moment comes from the use of emotions. Emotions are one of the single most important, touching, impressive and non-intrusive writing tools. It is often not recognized as a concrete tool, but as a feeling, a stirring, a capturing that catches the reader up in the fictive state.
Turn Writer’s Blocks Into Stepping Stones!
Years ago at a presentation at the UCLA Extension Writers Program, I promised an audience to teach them to conquer this beast once and for all. Later, another instructor approached me and said why did you say that to those people? Its not possible.
Forget About “Talent”!
How is a writer to access her deepest and most powerful wells of creativity? How do we tap into our talent, our genius, our greatest potential for success? Writing classes often tell us how to plot, or structure, or build characters, or create poetic images, but the question of accessing our excellence is a slippery and elusive one. It is possible well need to go outside our usual sources to find an answer.
Many will merely say be born with talent, coldly suggesting tha…
Going With “The Flow”
Flow state, that mysterious mental zone where time and the outside world seem to disappear, is one of the keys to peak performance. Frankly, your ability to harness the limits of your intelligence, creativity, education, or talents will be largely determined by your capacity to remain in flow while under stress.
Those who cannot suffer stage fright, writers block flop sweat and numerous other labels for the same phenomenoninability to access the deepest wells of co…
How To Survive A Good Review
When the first reviews for my most recent novel (Great Sky Woman, Random House 2006) started coming in, my emotions went through the usual roller coaster. The first, from Publishers Weekly, was 90% positive, but mentioned that, in their opinion, it was slow in spots. My stomach sank. Slow? In spots? Oh my Godall is lost!
The second review came in two weeks later. This one, from Booklist, used words like magnificent and engaging and adventure on a grand scale.
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It Was Good Enough For Shakespeare!
One of the core conflicts for creative artists of all kinds is the tug-of-war between art and commerce. Frankly, an artist needs to make money, and it is preferable to make it from his craft.
A writer who must work a full-time job to support himself will struggle to find the time to work, and often eventually gives it up altogether. On the other hand, being able to write on any project at all can polish valuable skills, and teach one the rules of the publishing industry. …
The Billionaire Writer’s Secret
During a career spanning twenty-five years of novel, film, and television work, I’ve two major tools most valuable: the yogic chakras for characterization, and Joseph Campbells model of the Heros Journey for plot structure.
The Lazy Man’s Guide To Great Characterization
One subject arising whenever writers gather to discuss their craft is the mining of life itself for story material. While a vital and important technique, it is important to remember that real human beings are impossibly complex, far too complicated to serve as story characters without major modification. The most complex character in all of western fiction (arguably), Hamlet, is still only 1% as complex as a real human being.
One must remember that there is a unity betwe…
The Three “Questions” Of Science Fiction
There is a great deal of misunderstanding about what that particular branch of literature called Science Fiction actually consists of. Is it space-ships and monsters? Time machines? Galactic empires? Well, its all of those things, and often none of them.
Science Fiction, broadly speaking, is story-telling that deals with the impact of organized knowledge on human beings. Usually, this means technology, and the way it changes usand reveals about us. After all, most techn…