Here’s how to make your computer help you find grammar and line editing problems. Awkward phrases, missing words, repeated words in close proximity, and repeated sentence length will be much more obvious and easier to identify to fix. It requires Word, WordPad and Excel. Plus a bit of computer skills, or, just follow the instructions […]

“Begin at the start of the ending” is a writing aphorism. Open your story there and you set yourself up to easily carry through without losing the reader’s attention. # During a Twitter discussion on the use of literary devices, I said that I use flashback because I tend to start near the end and […]

Writing a story is not the same as experiencing reality. For one thing, fiction is more interesting than 99% of most people’s reality. Even creative non-fiction and memoir take reality and reshape it for presentation so it’s not boring, doesn’t include irrelevant moments, and has a coherent story or point. There are some basic differences […]