Tuttlebird

Poetry Self-Edit Quick Start Guide and Checklist Introduction The idea behind this is to give newer poets a way to better edit their poetry themselves, without having to rely as much on an external editor.  It can be frustrating, especially for new poets to request feedback from a friend, or worse, to post a poem, and have all of the responses be about grammatical errors and other details.  We write poetry to convey ideas and emotions, and when something is off technically about the poem it distracts the reader.  When a reader is distracted enough to notice an error or other problem it means they might spend th

A Quick Guide to Organizing Your Fantasy/Sci-Fi Novel I'm going to try and briefly cover World Building specifically for Fantasy and Science Fiction (though it will apply in general to any setting), both major and minor Characters, and some basics of Timeline here. I am not going to walk you step by step through how to write your own story, but you should (hopefully) get some useful tips out of this. I never used to organize my novels before I started writing. I have so many stories in my head, I would just pick one and start writing. I didn't have trouble keeping to the same details of a given character because I knew them so well. But afte

           Villanelles can be quite discouraging; they look simple but are actually quite difficult. However, when mastered, it becomes “technically easy” according to Conrad Geller.  Just like riding a bike, right?  The name Villanelle is derived from the Italian villa, or country house, which is where aristocrats went to “refresh” themselves.  Strangely enough, the form is originally French and only appeared in the English language in the lat 1800s (19th century).  Out of the 19 lines in a Villanelle, only two rhymes are used.  Furthermore, two lines repeat throughout the poem; usually the first and last lines of the fir

Or at least how I plan to write my novels. Right now I'm tweaking a novel for release (aka Fine Drafting it). No matter how essential this step is, fine drafting a book doesn't feel like real writing, so I thought I would flex my writing muscles by trying to recapture what it took to bring this book into existence. What burbled up from the morass seemed about as wiry as Jeffy's run through gangland in the Family Circus cartoon that never made it to print (ask your parents kids). So. I decided to iron the process out and streamline the steps into what you might call "Ikea Instructions for Writing a Novel" a short simple guide to the mechanical

What is a Beta Reader?Apart from being a writer's best friend, beta readers provide a cross between edits and a critique. A beta reader does not edit a manuscript, but will note the errors for the author to fix. Advice and critiques are other services a beta may perform. Establishing a RelationshipYou've just partnered with an author; what do you do first? Establish with your author what each of you expects from the relationship. A solid understanding of expectations starts the partnership on a productive path and avoids misunderstandings.Time Expectations Is the author expecting a 24 hour turn around, while you're thinking a week? If not

***Tips For the Novice (and otherwise) - Editing*** The blanket statement, "Editing/revision harms poetry," is simply wrong.  It's akin to a photographer claiming that focusing the lens ruins the emotion of the photograph.  It is the details, and the appropriate attention paid to them, that separate a photograph from a snapshot.  Imagine a film maker slapping every frame he shot up on the screen without editing for continuity, for pacing, for effect.  What a disaster.  That is not to say that editing can't be destructive - there is such a thing as poor editing, just as there is poor writing.  But done correctly, done well, it is one of the m

Essentials of a Short Story ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Quotes raped from a critique of Nathanial Hawthorn's Twice Told Tales by Edgar Allen Poe - 1837 Edgar Allen Poe, celebrated as one of the finest short fiction writers of all time, was also a literary critic. These are bits of his wisdom on writing short stories, gleaned from one of his critiques. "The true critic will but demand that that the (story's) design intended be accomplished, to the fullest extent, by the means most advantageously applicable…" -- Poe Poe's Prerequisites -- in a Nutshell: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To deliver fullest satisfaction, a short story should be structured: 1) To

Once you know what your characters and doing and saying, how do you get all that down on Paper without ending up with a huge confusing mess? Putting the Story on Paper. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Everybody knows that when a new speaker speaks they get a new paragraph, right? In other words, you DON'T put two different people talking in the same paragraph. Okay, yeah, so anyone who has written any kind of fiction learns this pretty darned quick, (usually from their readers.) What nobody seems to get is that the same goes for a new character's ACTIONS. Seriously, when a new character ACTS they're supposed to get their own paragraph -- even if they don't

Note: I wrote this after reading a similar article in The Writer magazine about a year ago.  Hope it's helpful! Not all characters are created equal.  Here are some steps to make yours superior. 1) Desire Figure out what your character wants, needs, desires.  A closer relationship with God?  A place to belong?  Just to survive?  Figure it out.  You can’t move on to number 2 until you have. 2) Fear Now that you know what your character most desires, you should be able to figure out what he/she most fears.  Doing the wrong thing, being alone, death?  They are the polar opposites of your character’s desires. 3) History Go back i