The below excerpt is from my current work in progress (W.I.P.). I’m not sure if it will stay in the final version of the novel but am sharing it today because it’s related to one of the daily writing prompts from this past week. Somehow I worked what I wrote for the writing prompt into my current novel. Have you ever done that before?
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Recently I made a big decision. I decided to write the current novel I’m working on in the first person, singular voice. It’s a work in progress, so we’ll see if this decision remains. However, there are still a lot of other decisions I need to make regarding this work in progress. One of them involves fictional tenses.
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Most authors write about people and places they come across in real life, experiences they’ve had or want to have, and stories they’ve encountered before. Do you? Do you write autobiographical fiction?
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Knowing who your readers are is important. But there is a chicken-egg type of conundrum when considering your audience as a writer. Does your audience already exist and all you have to do is reach them wherever they are? Or does what you write, based on your interests and experiences, build your audience?
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It seems like a lot of dystopic fiction has been cropping up lately. At least, over the past five to ten years I’ve noticed this trend. And this trend is probably due to the fact that it’s starting to feel like we live in an actual dystopic reality most of the time nowadays… But that’s an inquiry to entertain some other day.
Today, I’m wondering: Why is some dystopic fiction better than other dystopic fiction? Are there any key elements dystopic fiction must contain if a writer is serious about writing better dystopic fiction?
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Today the legislative session for the state I live in, Colorado, is coming to an end. And this has me reflecting on the often-overlooked significance of local and state government. I know we’re all a little (or a lot) disgruntled with government nowadays. I am not naive. But read this post and hear me out. And consider why it can help you, and us all, to focus on local and state government issues to stay sane right now. Especially if you’re writing about anything relevant to the current world in which we live.
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After working on a particularly difficult part of the novel I’m working on today, I uncovered a tip for writing dialogue, much better dialogue.
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In the wake of US Supreme Court Justice Alito’s leaked drafted opinion regarding Roe v. Wade and Mother’s Day, which was yesterday, I am wondering: Does fiction about mothers and motherhood reveal more about our society and how it treats women than we readily acknowledge? Mothers in fiction are typically distraught, depressed, scared, prone to run away, etc.
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Today I wrote a funeral scene for my first novel. Instead of depressing me, however, it ultimately made me hopeful and energized, which surprised me at first. Who gets energized when envisioning a funeral? But then, with a bit of reflection, something critical occurred to me.
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