Craft of Writing

I spent the last several days at the ACFW conference in Minneapolis (along with about 600 of my closest friends) and once again my overriding feeling is… I’m tired. I’m sure everyone who went is feeling the same thing. It was terrific meeting lots of my blog readers and I’m glad many of you made…

It seems the biggest concern many of you have about this business is the difficulty of making the leap from being an unpublished novelist to being published. This comes out in all kinds of worries, like this one from Courtney:They say it’s very rare for a [new writer] to land an agent, let alone sell…

Yesterday we had some discussion in the blog comments about craft, or writing technique, vs. having a great story. Obviously, the formula for a good book includes both. Craft refers to all the mechanics of fiction: plot, characterization, dialogue, pacing, flow, scene-crafting, dramatic structure, point-of-view, etc. Story refers to the page-turning factor: how compelling is…