July 13th, 2010 by Brent Toderash
I follow a number of authors and writers on Twitter, and today when I saw Margaret Atwood tweet that she writes like Stephen King, I was intrigued. Apparently an online tool can analyze a few paragraphs of your writing and tell you which author’s style yours most resembles. And I had to know. So it was that I discovered,
Huzzah! That analysis is based on an excerpt from my unfinished novel, which according to the wisdom of some random autodrones, seems to be written at the same level as a couple of award-winning authors. Nice. As for my latest blog post, it turns out that Continue Reading →
July 3rd, 2010 by Brent Toderash
I’ve taken notice of something that Angela Ackerman does on her blog, The Bookshelf Muse. She’s come up with a set of thesauri for emotions, colours, textures, shapes, symbolism, and settings, and she adds to them periodically. Recently she posted Setting Thesaurus Entry: Courtroom, and As I thought about her process, it seemed to make good sense.
When I’m writing, I can tend to be too focused on the action and advancing the plot (which isn’t a bad thing!) but too much can leave the finished scene feeling a little sterile, needing deeper investment in descriptives. This is where a thesaurus like Angela’s could be helpful. Continue Reading →
April 25th, 2010 by Brent Toderash
The first letter I got from J.D. Salinger was very short. It was 1988, and I had written to him with a proposal: I wanted my tiny publishing house, Orchises Press, to publish his novella Hapworth 16, 1924. And Salinger himself had improbably replied, saying that he would consider it.
Read: How a Book Publisher Failed to Get J.D. Salinger’s Final Book ‘Hapworth 16, 1924‘ Into Print — New York Magazine.
March 26th, 2010 by Brent Toderash
The apparently definitive post on Word Count for Novels and Children’s Books from Chuck Sambuchino. A good guide for those following the sage advice of not expecting to be the exception.
