Story flaws: Finding and fixing them—PART 2

From Rick: In PART-1, I talked about three major flaws a story can have: (1) The story fails to engage the reader (2) The characters fail to engage the reader (3) The story takes too long to become interesting (or

Read more

Story flaws: Finding and fixing them—PART 1

From Rick: What’s wrong with your story? Why are magazine editors rejecting your short stories? Are your novels getting mixed reviews (or no reviews)? In a series of two posts I’m going to offer some suggestions for things you can

Read more

Character thoughts: When to italicize them

From Rick: In my June 1, 2020 post I talked about how to deal with character thoughts, specifically inner (direct) thoughts. I also talked about indirect thoughts. In a novel I’m currently editing, I noticed some places where the author

Read more