Thursday, June 7, 2012

Compelling plots, distancing words, and happy squares

Some links for everyone tonight!

First, my former Laramie Writer's Group buddy Margo has put together an amazing, fantastic list of tips to make your plot more compelling.  I love #17:
"17. Does your ending leave a few unanswered emotions or questions?(source: Cockeyed Caravan).A few unanswered questions and unresolved emotions are necessary to really have a profound effect. Great art shouldn’t be entirely satisfying. It has to disquiet us a little bit. It has to have a few holes for us to get stuck in."

Second, as a follow-up to Melanie's amazing link to The Writer's Diet, and it's test of the health of your prose, here are my two favorite posts with tips on how to decrease distancing words.
http://www.sfwa.org/2005/01/writerisms-and-other-sins-a-writers-shortcut-to-stronger-writing/
http://www.publishingcrawl.com/2012/05/21/filter-words/


Also, I'm forever sending this link to FFO submitters who have questions about the different types of rights publishers buy.  It's long, but it's really good to know if you're offering your short stories up for publication.


And finally, one of my favorite links ever. Someone (Karen?) posted it on Facebook a while back. Go forth, Click squares. Be happy.

4 comments:

  1. Oh my. A person could lose sleep over those squares. That is entirely too much fun. Great links, thank you!

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  2. Great links, but I really could have done without those squares. They are way too addictive. :)

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  3. Oooh, links! I love links.
    Thanks so much. These look great.

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  4. The squares wouldn't work for me... which is probably a good thing. What does it say about me, that you post a ton of awesome links on writing, and the first link I click is a game?

    :)

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