Organization and Research
Learn how to organize and store your research and materials.
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Creative Writing, Organization and Research, Point of View and Character Development, Structure and Plotting, Training, Lessons
Cause and Effect
One of the most effective ways to create a compelling plotline with a strong narrative drive is to make sure your cause and effect chain remains unbroken. What do I mean by the cause and effect chain? In stories, as in life, things happen because other things happen. If you fall down, you skin your knee. Your knee would not be injured if you hadn’t fallen down. That’s cause and effect. In stories, cause and effect are a kind of glue that holds your story together. Without it, your story is merely a collection of random incidents and your reader eventually becomes bored because things happen for…
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Fish-heads and Hooks
What’s a fish-head and what does it have to do with writing? I heard this term from an author friend who heard it from her first writing teacher, forty years ago. This teacher used the metaphor of a fish-head to warn her students about a common situation that happens when a writer’s in the earliest stages of creating a story. She said writers often begin writing a scene, thinking it’s the start, but it’s not in fact, the true beginning of the story. Instead, the fish-head is the scene or scenes that the writer needs to write first, to begin bringing the story into focus. You have to…
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Autobiography vs. Memoir
What’s the Difference? Autobiography? Biography? Memoir? Story? Creative Non-Fiction? Personal Essay? All too often, when a writer decides to “write their memoirs”, they are thinking about an autobiography — the story of their entire lifetime. Calling it a memoir is a misnomer. Autobiographies and Memoirs are not the same. So, what is the difference? Autobiography “Auto”, from the Latin, means “self”. “Bio” means “life”. So an autobiography is your own life story written by yourself. A Biography, on the other hand, is a life story written by someone else, like a ghostwriter. “Bi” meaning two or dual. An Autobiography is an author’s complete life story,…
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Creative Writing, Organization and Research, Productivity, Prompts, Structure and Plotting, Theme, Purpose and Outcome
Less Is More
This morning, I went into my writing group completely unprepared to write. I had to show up at 11:00 a.m. and I’d been doing something else when the timer startled me with its petulant beeping, reminding me to get online immediately, if not sooner! Now, most times, when I go into the group, I know what I’m going to write — at least I have some idea or framework for the words I’ll be putting down — but for some reason, this morning I had completely forgotten that I had to write this blog post, so when one of my writer friends asked me what I’d be working…
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Creative Writing, Organization and Research, Point of View and Character Development, Productivity, Prompts, Theme, Purpose and Outcome, Thoughts, Opinions and Philosophical Discussions, Training, Lessons
Questions and Answers
How NOT To Write Your Memoir Most people, when they start to write their memoirs, think they have to stick strictly to the facts, that their story has to be a list of the things they did, in the order that they did them. This simply isn’t true. It leads to the belief that they have to write their entire history — an autobiography, which, for most people is messy, disconnected and hard to follow. This means that they end up with a list of dry, dull facts, like some kind of desiccated checklist that may reflect the events of their lives, but doesn’t say much about…
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Memoirs, Organization and Research, Point of View and Character Development, Prompts, Theme, Purpose and Outcome
The Significance of Memories
Every life has common themes that repeat themselves over and over. One of my own most common themes is a love of animals, so when my writers’ group chose Favourite Toys as their prompt this week, it got me thinking… What was my favourite toy as a child? Of course, there were many…the roller skates that repeatedly steered me towards every crack in the sidewalk, leading to skinned knees and copious tears; the pogo stick that bounced me straight into a pile of fresh dog poop; and the bicycle my parents bought for me — an unexpected gift and a total, wonderful surprise. But the…
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Anachronism and Research in Memoir
When writing a memoir, it’s important to ensure your recollections are accurate. Relatives will forgive the odd mistake, because they know you (and hopefully love you). If you’re writing for eventual publication however, you’d better be sure your references are true to the times you’re describing. Disclaimers Disclaimers can only go so far. Phrases like “The names have been changed to protect the innocent” or “based on a true story” can persuade the reader to expect a degree of departure from actual facts, but your facts should be as well-researched and accurate as you can make them, especially in autobiographies. Memoirs can have more flexibility and can even be fiction…