The Comic Muse » writing fiction

True Confessions of a Self-Publishing Author

Thu, 28 Nov 2013 14:05:58 +0000

And here’s Part 2 of my talk to the Annapolis Chapter of the Maryland Writer’s Association, in which I get into more of the practical details of self-publishing and marketing one’s books.

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Character Wants and Character Needs

Daniel McInerny — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 21:07:07 +0000

Create memorable characters for your stories with the help of the distinction between character wants and internal character needs. Our discussion on today's The Comic Muse Podcast. In this podcast you will learn about the most basic question a writer needs to answer in order to develop a compelling character why what a character wants is not always exactly what a character needs how a character's internal need is connected to your story's Controlling Idea Works discussed in this podcast: Flannery O'Connor's essay "Writing Short Stories" in her collection of essays, Mystery and Manners. David Corbett's The Art of Character. Character Wants and Character Needs 3

Action is Character

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 20:25:04 +0000

Celebrated crime author David Corbett has a wonderful post over on Joanna Penn’s blog about writing character and especially how character is revealed by action. Check it out. It’s one of the best pieces on character I’ve seen. I’ll leave it to you to enjoy Corbett’s entire post, but I’ll at least set out for […]

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Free Indirect Speech, Part 2

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 00:17:20 +0000

“Lily, the caretaker’s daughter, was literally run off her feet.” This opening line from James Joyce’s short story, “The Dead,” is an example of free indirect speech, narration that indicates a character’s internal thoughts and feelings without the use of quotation marks or “he said, he thought” reporting. But how does this line take us […]

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Free Indirect Speech, Part 1

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 16:28:49 +0000

Let’s distinguish between what critic James Wood calls (1) direct or quoted speech; (2) indirect speech; and (3) free indirect speech. Here are samples of each: Direct or Quoted Speech (from Anthony Trollope’s The Way We Live Now) “Of course I love you,” he said, not thinking it worth his while to kiss her. “It’s […]

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The Great American Production Line

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 21:40:11 +0000

The other day I mentioned the distinction between technological thinking and philosophical thinking, and how our culture in general, and electronic media in particular, are dominated by technological thinking. Now we are seeing that technological thinking is seeping into the creative act of writing books. In a piece today on Page-Turner, the book blog of […]

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