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Spring Is the Time for Editing!

Spring is always one of the most difficult times of the year to be disciplined as a writer. The out of doors is abloom with fresh smells and green buds everywhere—and warm sunshine. It’s beckoning outside my window right now. I do make time to be outside, go hiking, sometimes just lie on the grass and appreciate the sun. But most of the time, I have to settle for opening my window and staying at my desk. One thing I did this year is buy a rolling laptop tray, which essentially gives me a desk anywhere in the house. So I can take my editing right over to that open window—and still keep my comfy desk chair.

One of beta readers always laughs at me early in the process of writing a book because I’m always neurotic about whether or not my characters are coming across as likable as I want them to be. Having just finished the first quarter edit of my historical superhero work-in-progress Wayfarer, I’m kind of laughing at myself too. I’m pleased with how it’s coming together, especially now that I’m about to get to the really fun stuff. As long as we’re writing characters we love—and displaying the qualities we love on the page—readers will almost always end up feeling exactly the same way about them as we do.

I’ve also finished my big edit on my historical barnstorming kinda/sorta dieselpunk story Storming and am now doing one last clean-up pass to get it ready to go to my editor. For big edits, I always like working on the computer. I work more quickly because I don’t have to spend extra time interpreting and transcribing my corrections. Plus, I like using the same process—typing on the computer—as I do in first drafts, since it puts me in a writing frame of mind rather than a tweaking frame of mind. But when it comes time for clean-up edits—tweaking edits—I just need a printed page in front of me. When I want to focus on each word, I need to be able to look at it in the solidity of the page, rather then letting it roll around onscreen with the twitch of my mouse. So I’ve printed off the manuscript and am spending my afternoons with red pen in hand!

 
 
Jane Eyre: Writer's Digest Annotated Classic

Featured Book: Jane Eyre: Writer’s Digest Annotated Classics

One of the most sweeping and enduring novels in English literature, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre has become a beloved classic and a must-read for fans of period romance. Filled with memorable characters, witty dialogue, emotional scenes, social commentary, and intriguing twists, Bronte’s novel, written in 1847, still has much to teach writers about crafting exceptional stories.

As part of the Writer’s Digest Annotated Classics series, this edition of Jane Eyre features hundreds of insightful annotations from writing instructor and author K.M. Weiland. Explore the craft and technique of Jane Eyre through the lens of a writer, and learn why and how Bronte made the choices she did while writing her iconic novel. The techniques learned from the annotations and accompanying study guide will aid in the crafting of your own celebrated works of fiction.

 
 
 
 
 

“I believe one would write better if the climate were bad. If there were a lot of wind and storms for example....”

―Aldous Huxley

 
 
 
 

Your Questions Answered: Which Story?

Q. I like this story so much and am so enthusiastic about it I think maybe I should save it for when I have some more experience, instead of trying to use this as my very first fiction. So I started to outline another story, one I have even written a chapter of years ago (ten or more) and make it a short story to use as the first one ever. What do you think? Bad idea?—Marcos

A. I would say, as I often do, to listen to your gut. If there’s another story you would be passionate about writing right now, you could certainly hold off on this one. However, I’m generally ambivalent toward the idea of “saving” stories. For one thing, none of us will ever reach a level of skill that will tell our stories in the perfection we’d like. For another, there are always more stories. Who’s to say the next story idea you come up with won’t be even better than this one? Ultimately, the story itself will tell you if it’s ready to be written. For me, there’s always an inner resistance, sometimes just a niggle, when a story isn’t ready. I’ve learned to listen to that niggle.

Contact Me

Have a writing question you’d like answered? I respond to all emails and will publish one question a month in this e-letter.

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May Article Roundup

Show What Your Character Is Feeling and Thinking (and Do It Like a Writer, Not a Director)

Want Readers to Adore Your Book? Learn How to Ace Your Climactic Moment

Afraid Your Book Is Boring? Your Characters May Not Be Doing This One Important Thing

My Writing Process, Pt. 1 of 2: How I Use Scrivener to Outline My Novels

How to Make Readers Love an Unlikable Character—And Hate a Likable One.

My Writing Process, Pt. 2 of 2: How I Use Scrivener to Write My First Drafts

An Easy Way to Immediately Improve Your Character’s Action Beats

Learn Scrivener Fast Webinar Replay Now Available!

Find Out if Your Prologue Is Destroying Your Story’s Subtext

The Lazy Technique That Can Cripple Suspenseful Chapter Endings

 

Helpful Links & Resources

How Important Is It to Be a “Famous” Writer?: Lauren Sapala talks to us about the relative importance of fame.

How to Write Brilliant Description: Wendy Lawton points out the pitfalls of too much description.

What We Can Learn from Fairy Tales: An Illustrated Interview with Jeff Goins:  Christine Frazier and Jeff Goins talk about what ghosts and the Call have to do with being a writer

 

Something to Think About

Do you work better with a deadline for your writing - or not? Why?

 
 

Want Deliciously Unbearable Tension in Your Novel? You Might Need Less of This Surprising Thing

What makes for great tension in a novel? You might think the answer is horrible stuff happening to your character at every turn. But this actually isn’t true.

The tension in your novel is what keeps readers reading. Without that delicious fear of inevitable conflict, readers will fail to see the importance in your build-up scenes—and they’re likely to give up on your book. What makes for great tension is the threat of horrible happenings.

My personal favorite adaptation of Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist is the 1968 musical Oliver! Aside from the lovely musical numbers, the greatest reason for this is Oliver Reed's stunning turn as the villainous Bill Sikes. He’s thunderingly and physically horrifying, and he dominates every scene he’s in and makes me want to hold a pillow in front of my face every time he shows up.

Yet he does very little onscreen that’s actually all that bad. Until the second half when he hits Nancy and tries to beat Oliver, he doesn’t do much at all. Mostly, he just stomps around and looks nasty. And that, right there, is the key to his success as a villain.

Sikes ratchets the tension in this movie to unbearable levels, and he does it by stretching that promise of horrible happenings as far as it can possibly be stretched. Everything about him screams danger, but that promise isn’t paid off until the latest possible moment. The result is that viewers—for all their fear of the foreshadowing—are left to imagine on their own just what Sikes is capable of. And we imagine quite a bit!

When finally the story pays off the promise of Sikes’s danger in the shockingly brutal scene when he beats Nancy to death with his walking stick, the tension releases in a burst of horror every bit as bad as viewers expected. The tension that kept us riveted throughout the story turns into conflict that’s just as phenomenally big as we expected.

 
 
 
 
 

“Nobody reads a book to get to the middle.”―Mickey Spillane

 

May Drawing Winners: Every month, I randomly draw four names from among e-letter subscribers. The winners receive their choice of digital media from among my books​​. This month's winners are Anna Dooley, L.C. Thompson, Max Garfield, and James Annes. I will contact the winners directly. Congrats to all―and good luck to everyone else in the coming drawings!