Category Archives: writing craft

A Writer’s Voice

Posted on March 31, 2009 by Victoria Janssen

I’ve never been entirely sure what voice is, while at the same time I feel it’s something I know in my bones, unique as a retinal print. As a writer, my voice is part of me. Yet it’s not static. … Continue reading →

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How To Learn to Write

Posted on March 25, 2009 by Victoria Janssen

I was reading an article about how to write scenes. The article provided a list of things that needed to be included in a scene. They were all very useful suggestions. There were a lot of them. I imagined being … Continue reading →

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Raymond Chandler on prose style

Posted on March 23, 2009 by Victoria Janssen

“The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the most valuable investment a writer can make with his time. It pays off slowly, your agent will sneer at it, your publisher will misunderstand it, and it will … Continue reading →

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Underwriting

Posted on March 21, 2009 by Victoria Janssen

When I draft a story, I am almost always an underwriter. I write less than I could; I write less than a reader might need to fully comprehend a character or setting. Then, when I go back and read over … Continue reading →

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Zero Drafting

Posted on March 18, 2009 by Victoria Janssen

It’s amazing how many words one can put down when one is trying not to care about them. It’s impossible for me not to care at all–on a computer, I am constantly making small changes in word choice or in … Continue reading →

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Caring About Your Characters – Or Not

Posted on March 16, 2009 by Victoria Janssen

Do you have to care about your characters and their story to write it? Do you have to invent characters you like before writing? Some people say yes. I say no, at least not at the beginning of the process. … Continue reading →

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Pithy Writing Advice

Posted on March 10, 2009 by Victoria Janssen

I used to have an orange file folder in which I carried stacks of manuscripts to my writing workshop every couple of months. Inside that folder, I wrote quotes–things that people said while critiquing, some their own, some from another … Continue reading →

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Novel Beginnings: on opening sentences

Posted on March 9, 2009 by Victoria Janssen

Thanks to a post at Lust in Time, I began thinking about first lines and beginnings of novels, and the idea that novels are supposed to “grab” the reader from the beginning, or “start with a bang.” (I pause to … Continue reading →

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Jane Yolen on plot

Posted on March 8, 2009 by Victoria Janssen

From Take Joy, by Jane Yolen: “It is the writer’s privilege, really, to order events, to focus on one strand of an existence while ignoring all others. We cannot do this in reality–but we can on the pages of a … Continue reading →

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The Art of Letting Go – Finishing the Novel

Posted on March 3, 2009 by Victoria Janssen

When is it time to stop working on a manuscript? I might as well say now, this post is going to be one of my least concrete. Last week, February 26, I turned in The Moonlight Mistress. I’d turned in … Continue reading →

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