Immerse yourself in your work—and stay here.
KamiMMcArthur - 5/22/2013
Most of you know that my son Ben had a longboarding accident recently and suffered a traumatic brain injury. I’m sitting in the hospital as I write this.
KamiMMcArthur - 5/20/2013
Shakespeare once said “The play is the thing.” I think that he understood that playing with words, with ideas, with characters in opposition—brainstorming as he wrote—that was the key to writing well.
KamiMMcArthur - 5/17/2013
You need to move into your fictive world slowly.
KamiMMcArthur - 5/13/2013
Today I'm going to look at how one “gets into his or her writing zone,”
KamiMMcArthur - 5/7/2013
Here are some ideas to help you increase your ability to write and to brainstorm.
KamiMMcArthur - 5/3/2013
In my posts, I prefer to concentrate on storytelling, rather than talking about the art of creating powerful prose or talk much about the business side of writing, but today I’m going to make an exception.
KamiMMcArthur - 4/29/2013
Stories aren't about characters so much as they are about growth. In other words, your characters will change and grow throughout a novel.
KamiMMcArthur - 4/25/2013
I always approach my work with great expectations. Those expectations change from piece to piece.
KamiMMcArthur - 4/22/2013
When you’re writing a tale, it almost always turns out better if you get deep into the head of your protagonist and tell the story from that person’s point of view.
KamiMMcArthur - 4/18/2013
People will judge your movies and stories regardless of how insecure you may feel about it. Sometimes their judgments will be fair and accurate, but just as often they’ll be biased, foolish, unfounded or downright deranged.
KamiMMcArthur - 4/12/2013
Help raise money for Ben Wolverton, a 16-year-old who suffers from brain trauma and is in a coma and has no insurance, by buying books today.
KamiMMcArthur - 4/10/2013
It’s important to always be learning, always be studying. In order to do that, you have to remain humble.
KamiMMcArthur - 4/9/2013
As many of you know, Dave’s son, Ben, was in a serious long-boarding accident last week. He is 16 and suffers from severe brain trauma, a cracked skull, broken pelvis and tail bone, burnt knees, bruised lungs, broken ear drum, road rash, and is currently in a coma.
KamiMMcArthur - 4/8/2013
In storytelling, I often point out that in order to engage a reader’s interest, we need to offer something strange...
KamiMMcArthur - 4/5/2013
Taking Time for the Important Things
KamiMMcArthur - 4/4/2013
When you’re telling a story, they say that “God is in the details.” In other words, the more details you feed your reader, the easier it is for that reader to enter your fictive universe and become engrossed in your universe.
KamiMMcArthur - 4/3/2013
In case you haven’t noticed over the past few years, I talk a lot about storytelling—about the parts of stories—inciting incidents, character arcs, climaxes, and so on. I also talk about writing as a profession, but I don’t talk much about the art of composing beautiful, lyrical sentences.
KamiMMcArthur - 4/2/2013
Very often, particularly early in a novel, you’ll find that certain characters are a bit long-winded, or you discover that they have problems that seem more intriguing than you wanted them to be...
KamiMMcArthur - 4/1/2013
I’ve said before that every story should have an emotional payoff. Yet far too often, I read stories where the payoff is weaker than it should be, or it isn’t there at all.
KamiMMcArthur - 3/29/2013