The Art of Writing a Novel

This weekend I attended a two-day workshop presented by Alexandra Sokoloff on screenwriting structure for novelists.  It was incredibly helpful and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to take their writing to the next level.  Her website:  http://alexandrasokoloff.com.

You know, when I sat down and wrote my first novel – and it only took me thirty days, which should tell you something – I thought all you had to do was puke plot onto paper.  Ha!  No one, but no one, will ever see that pile of dung. 

 
Now however, having written several novels, I’ve mastered show-don’t-tell, setting as character, the hero’s journey and its archetypes, how to create sympathetic protagonists, and have eliminated dialogue tags and my beloved-but-oh-so-forbidden semicolon.  I know enough now to understand that I have barely scratched the surface.   It’s a good thing I didn’t know there was more to it than that, or I’d never have started this whole writing thing.

OF NOTE:  This week, The Bookshop Muse is releasing its much anticipated Emotion Thesaurus.  Grab your copy, you writers you!  You won’t know what you ever did without it.  http://thebookshelfmuse.blogspot.com/