by Zoe M. McCarthy | Apr 16, 2015 | Writing
“The glory of the protagonist is always paid for by a lot of secondary characters.” —Tony Hoagland Most fiction writers have heard that the purpose of secondary characters is to support a main character. One of their jobs is to help flesh out a main character’s...
by Zoe M. McCarthy | Apr 9, 2015 | Writing
“Coincidence cannot replace motivation.” — Debra Dixon I’ve been reading Debra Dixon’s GMC: Goal, Motivation, and Conflict. Her discussion about coincidences spoke to me. I wanted a scene between my hero and his widowed sister-in-law, the heroine, concerning an ugly...
by Zoe M. McCarthy | Oct 30, 2014 | Writing
“I write a lot from personal experience, but I also embellish a bit.” — Miranda Lambert Why is it important to include our personal stories in some way in our writing? Well, few can imagine catching a sailfish better than a person who actually landed one. When...
by Zoe M. McCarthy | Apr 17, 2014 | Creating
“The artist finds a greater pleasure in painting than in having completed the picture.” — Lucius Seneca. Do you dream of people buying your art masterpieces or reading your bestseller or attending your sold-out performance? Or do you picture the Most Creative...
by Zoe M. McCarthy | Jan 2, 2014 | Writing
“Writers create narrative distance when they consciously or unconsciously insert an invisible narrator between the [point of view character] and the reader.” —Jill Elizabeth Nelson You want your reader to connect with your main characters so deeply that your reader...
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