Q&A with Hugh Tipping
Please welcome Hugh Tipping to our Featured Q&A series at Writer’s Fun Zone. If you’d like to be considered for an interview, check out our guidelines here.
Tagged: manuscript
Your Book in Five Words or Less: Your Title by Kay Keppler
You’ve finished your book. After all the hard work, you need a great title. But writing a title is a lot different from writing a full-length novel or even a short story. Writing a title takes creativity, but it isn’t storytelling—it’s marketing. Your potential readers see a title before they see anything in chapter one, and it has to hook them. Companies spend fortunes on finding the right name for new products—names that will resonate with consumers—and so should you.
Accountability Using Google Spreadsheets by Raina Schell
A few months ago I decided on an exercise challenge. After two years of bi-weekly handstand classes I still could not balance on my own in the center of the room. After asking experts I was told, “you need to practice every single day no matter what, for a minimum of two minutes a day. If you do this, in six months to a year you’ll have your handstands.”
Say That Again: Writing Dialogue by Kay Keppler
People talk to each other all the time, so it seems as though writing dialogue should be simple. But many writers trip up over making dialogue sound natural. Here’s a sample of something I see frequently when I’m editing manuscripts:
Playing Games With Your Characters’ Emotional Spaces by Wyatt Bessing
There are multiple kinds of truth, in fiction as in life. As fiction writers, we move as close to the truth as possible without ever quite veering into truth entirely (otherwise we’d be writing nonfiction). One kind of truth emanates from a realism of scene and detail. By identifying with familiar settings and character traits, readers are pulled into a story and become personally attached to it.
Writer’s Brain – Whose Brain Is It? by Raina Schell
Sometimes writing is like being in a trance. How else can it be explained? When people have experiences, like taking the kids to the zoo for the first time or falling in love; we remember them. We may even remember what our lover was wearing the first time we laid eyes on him or her.
Will You Quit Before The Whistle Blows? by Carol Malone
Once upon a time, a critique partner told me I should put my manuscript in a box and place that box under my bed and never take it out. Imagine for a moment that you’re me. How would that make you feel in your mind and in your creative heart? Devastated, right? I wanted to slam down my manuscript and walk off the writing-playing field before the whistle blew, and not ever look back.
Be a Game-Changer by Wyatt Bessing
Some writers enjoy the process of rereading and combing through each word, looking for ways to strengthen sentences, remove extraneous detail, sharpen plot and develop characters. But for many it’s pure torture. Editing can feel like it lacks the punch and excitement of the initial writing, too analytical and uncreative.
The Writer’s Reward by Catharine Bramkamp
Let’s welcome back monthly columnist Catharine Bramkamp as she shares with us “ The Writer’s Reward.” Enjoy!
Vanity Publishers and How to Identify Them by Deanna Jackson
There are so many things I have learned thus far in my journey to become a published author. I am a very eager person but unfortunately sometimes I lack patience. Patience is definitely something I didn’t have when I first started writing.
Losing NaNo This Year Does Not Make Me a Loser By Raina Schell
This is the first year in the three years that I’ve been doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writer’s Month) that I didn’t “win”. In case you don’t know, NaNo is where you write 50,000 words in the month of November. I started my fourth novel for NaNo this year and then life got in the way. I’ve been disciplined enough to write a novel outside of November in the past but having that month to completely focus on word count has always been ground breaking. Being competitive with yourself works for some people but not for others. It works for me.
Cheering on the Wrimos from the Sidelines by Annmarie Miles
I took the decision not to do NaNoWriMo this year. I’m so far behind with other writing projects; I could not contemplate starting something new. However I did enjoy the last couple of years and learned a lot from it. Hopefully for next November I’ll be ready to try it again.
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