February 24, 2021
Something is Missing My critique group met this week via Zoom. One member is working on a memoir. The section we’ve been critiquing is fascinating. She was in Christchurch, New Zealand when the 2011 earthquake hit. In fact, she and her husband were in the Cathedral at the exact moment the earthquake hit and everything […]
January 30, 2019
I just spent 2 days working out (in my mind and on paper) why my secondary characters are doing (or have done) certain things. My P.J. Benson Mysteries are all told in first person, so I can’t have scenes where the reader sees or hears what secondary characters are doing or thinking, but that doesn’t […]
May 11, 2016
In 1994 Debra Dixon was the guest speaker at the Mid-Michigan RWA Chapter’s “Retreat From Harsh Reality.” That was the first time I heard her talk about GMC: Goal, Motivation, and Conflict. It was one of those light bulb moments. I’d been writing for over ten years by then, but what Debra was saying made […]
July 31, 2013
We often hear that it’s bad to use backstory. It doesn’t hook the reader. Stops the forward movement of the story. Readers skip it; editors reject it. But wait! Don’t you want to let the reader know what happened in your character’s past that’s causing him/her to act this way? Yes…no…maybe. The problem is backstory […]