I’ve been experimenting with HOW and WHEN to give the reader a physical description of characters. In a novel draft I avoided any physical description of the narrator until the scene where her love interest meets her —well into the book. I’m not sure if it worked and, as the novel is in the holding pen awaiting another rewrite, it’ll be a while before I test the theory. In my current novel-in-progress, I’m nailing down descriptions of each character and, I’ve realized, that writing most of these descriptions is not part of my natural flow. I’ve taken to going back
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Alone with My Thoughts
The other day was framed by some odd logistics. I had an early lunch meeting on Broadway and 95th Street and a 5pm meeting on Broadway and 50th. In-between I stopped at the Apple store at Lincoln Center (I had planned to just check out the 11inch MacBook Air and, since it was on sale, I wound up buying one!). If you don’t know NYC, 95th to 50th is a long, long walk with plenty of subway options at 93rd, 72nd, etc. along the way. Why did I walk? Good question. I’m not entirely sure. I had time to kill
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Little Gray Men
A long while back, I immersed myself in the first person narratives of alien abductions. It was for one of those novels nesting in the back of my closet (a lonely island of strange stories.) Every now and then, a piece of that research resurfaces in my imagination and tickles me, whispering…. “Write about this…. Give it another try.” I was walking along a very gray street, on a very gray night, with icy rain pelting the piles of slushy gray snow and feeding rivers of icy gray water pouring into curbside drains —in other words it was a dismal
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The Devil Drinks Dark Roast — Everyone Needs a Coffee Break
The aroma of coffee, the hum of Dixieland jazz and the babel of conversations washed over the devil as he opened the door. It took him a moment to focus. “What’s your darkest blend?” “We have a single origin, special drip…” “No,” he rejected the complicated connoisseur daily special. “Just a large cup of a dark roast — black.” “That would be our dark velvet. Are you staying or taking out?” “To stay, yes, to stay.” He sighed. The throb of heartbeats rolled like thunder vibrating under his toes. She gave him a large, white ceramic mug of dark roast
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I Love My Computer
Sometimes I wonder what kind of writer I’d be in the time of typewriters and legal pads. I know that back when I had my first job those IBM Selectrics were a hurdle I had to jump with every page! I write. I write every day. I write novels. I write short stories. I write blog posts. I write freelance assignments, business proposals and more. I honestly don’t think I’d be able to accomplish the quantity —let alone quality— of my text output back in the days of typewriters, white out corrective liquid and carbon paper. In the dark ages
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Sneaky Writer Tricks
Sometimes a storyteller must be sneaky and sprinkle false clues —AKA “red herrings” among the “useful” bits and pieces of information in a work of fiction. The best mystery writers are adept at this kind of misdirection. The seemingly casual mention of a dog barking every night at a particular time, a observation about a character arriving late for an appointment, or a detailed description of the items on a desk could be clues to solve the mystery OR false clues meant to draw the readers attention away from the woman who lets her cat out at exactly that time
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