Category: On Reading

Paying it Forward, Writer’s Style

Donna Judy Curtin Leave a comment
Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash

You may have heard the saying, Paying it Forward. Similar sayings include… to pass it on, sharing kindness, or repaying in-kind. This means that when someone does something nice, instead of paying it back directly to the person who performed this kindness, you do something kind for someone else.

In the writing world, Paying it Forward is a core component

of the writing community. It can include things like volunteering on a committee, organizing meetings for a writing group, planning writing retreats, beta reading, participating in critique groups, writing book reviews, making book recommendations, attending book launches, supporting other writer’s online messages, or BUYING THEIR BOOK. Many of these actions are the foundation of how the writing world thrives and survives. Read more

Disappearing Between the Pages of a Summer Romance

Lori Twining 6 Comments

How often do you sit down and read a book from cover to cover without doing anything else besides taking a pee break or foraging your pantry for more snacks?

Hardly ever, right? Who has time for that? We all have task lists as long as the Canada-USA border. We can’t just disappear from our busy lives to read a book.

Well, sometimes, I do.

People can try to shame me or make me feel guilty with their “Wow! Must be nice to do absolutely nothing.” And guess what? I don’t care. It is nice. I finally finished the big-girl quilt for my granddaughter’s birthday present (it took me a year) and I had a time to relax for a few minutes. I’m living my life how I want to, because we will ALL be dead soon (sorry to break that news to you), so why not spend my time the way I want to.

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Finding the Sweet Balance Between Interiority and Exteriority in Fiction

Lori Twining 4 Comments
Photo by Nick Morrison from Unsplash

During my last writing retreat, I had a discussion with a few writers about how to nail the emotional thoughts, and inner struggles of a character on the page. How do you make the reader fall in love with your character just by writing dialogue or action? How do you fit in the things only the character knows. How do you decide how many inner thoughts to include? What is too much? Or is not enough? All great questions.

The answer is simple: Find the sweet balance between the characters’ interiority and exteriority within the story you are trying to tell.

What is Interiority?

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Piecemeal

Andrée Levie-Warrilow 1 Comment

ONE OF THE BIG THINGS about creative writing  is how much a part of one’s self shows up in the work, even when the theme is something completely fabricated.
      I liken writing to a piecework quilt: beyond the grammar and words one selects to stitch everything together (although that can colour everything), in most of what we write, what we design – plot, theme, characters – everything originates as a pastiche of everything we have lived and learned. Just like those quilts that use symbols of colour and form to send a message, our minds gather up all those elements that we have to hand from our experiences and knowledge, even when we’re creating something uniquely from our imagination. Read more

A Glimpse of My Favourite Irish Character on St. Patrick’s Day

Lori Twining Leave a comment
Lori Twining’s bookshelf

Yesterday, on Sunday, March 17th, many people celebrated St. Patrick’s Day by wearing clothing in the symbolic colour green, chugging green beer, and telling dirty Irish limerick jokes around the supper table. I’m lucky to have some Irish blood running through me on my mother’s and father’s sides of the family, so I have a few sweary tales that would make you laugh.

However, I want to share three facts that might blow your mind about St. Patrick’s Day:

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Sparking Discussions with an Ambiguous Novel Ending

Lori Twining 2 Comments
Lori Twining reading Crime Fiction

There is severe pressure on writers to have an excellent opening sentence, with an intriguing first page and a gripping first chapter. Most writers spend quite a bit of time rewriting this section of the book more than any other part of the novel. My current novel has had at least ten different first chapters, and I’m not even going to mention the hated prologue (I have written a few and deleted them all).

Then, there is the problematic middle that everyone talks about. I have a whole shelf in my library dedicated to writing your way through that. Truthfully, Write Your Novel From the Middle by James Scott Bell is one of the better how-to books for approaching this situation. It is easy to read, short (only 84 pages), and concise.

What we don’t hear much about is how to end the book. How do you deliver a satisfying ending that makes the reader walk away with a smile? How do you nail the ending and create a stir so magnificent that they are banging on your door for the next book?

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