by Zoe M. McCarthy | Apr 25, 2019 | Writing
image by jhas Tailor Your Fiction Manuscript in 30 Days is now available. See details below. Writers may think characters should talk and act like real people. If a movie showed actors doing that, the theater would soon be empty. That’s why films cut to the important...
by Zoe M. McCarthy | Oct 27, 2016 | Writing
I heard about an exercise to increase tension in which participants wrote a situation, then were told 10 times in succession to make the circumstances worse. Sometimes, we writers are too quick to be satisfied with the tension we’ve created. But the exercise showed...
by Zoe M. McCarthy | Dec 17, 2015 | Writing
“The middle of our story should be the ‘meat’ of the story, as far as conflicts and arcs. Without setting up the obstacles here, any solution in the final act will seem too easy and won’t be as satisfying.” —Jamie GoldI pulled 5 books from my shelves. I paged to the...
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...
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