Tag Archives: narrative

Professional Wednesday: Beginnings, Middles, and Endings, part VI — Final Thoughts

Posted on July 19, 2023 by dbjackson

This week I close out my Professional Wednesday feature on “Beginnings, Middles, and Endings” with some general observations about narrative structure. If you are just coming to this series of posts, I would recommend you go back and read the … Continue reading →

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Professional Wednesday: Beginnings, Middles, and Endings, part V — What Makes a Good Ending?

Posted on July 12, 2023 by dbjackson

Continuing my Professional Wednesday feature on “Beginnings, Middles, and Endings,” (previous posts can be found here, here, here, and here) I now turn to endings. And I will begin by stating the obvious: The ending to our story is likely … Continue reading →

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Professional Wednesday: Beginnings, Middles, and Endings, part III — The 60% Wall

Posted on June 28, 2023 by dbjackson

Today, I add to my series of posts about “Beginnings, Middles, and Endings,” with a continued focus on the vast middle of the novel. If you wish to go back and read my first two essays in this feature on … Continue reading →

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Professional Wednesday: Beginnings, Middles, and Endings, part II — Narrative Structure

Posted on June 21, 2023 by dbjackson

Last week, I began a new Professional Wednesday feature called “Beginnings, Middles, and Endings,” in which I plan to write about the various parts of story writing. In last week’s post, I focused on openings, on how to approach the … Continue reading →

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Professional Wednesday: Trust Yourself. No, Really.

Posted on May 10, 2023 by dbjackson

Trust your reader. This is editor speak for “trust yourself.” It is something I say often to many of the writers I edit. But what does it mean? I have had my own lesson in “trust your reader” in recent … Continue reading →

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Professional Wednesday: “Hidden Brain,” Perception, and Fiction

Posted on October 5, 2022 by dbjackson

On a recent drive I began listening to the Hidden Brain podcast, with the brilliant Shankar Vedantam. I had listened to scattered episodes before, but never in a systematic way. But this was a long drive and I wound up … Continue reading →

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Professional Wednesday: It’s All Connected

Posted on September 28, 2022 by dbjackson

One more post about my teaching weekend at the Hampton Roads Writers Conference . . . . As I believe I mentioned last week, I taught four classes at the event. The topics were: point of view, character development, world … Continue reading →

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Professional Wednesday: Dealing With the Slog, part II — The 60% Stall

Posted on June 8, 2022 by dbjackson

Many years back, while I was working on one of the middle books in my Winds of the Forelands quintet, my second series, I came downstairs after a particularly frustrating day of writing and started whining to Nancy about my … Continue reading →

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Professional Wednesday: Why Fantasy, Why Magic?

Posted on March 30, 2022 by dbjackson

My oldest brother, Bill, who we lost several years ago, was an avid reader. He loved books of all sorts. Every year, he made a list of the National Book Award nominees — finalists and books on the long list … Continue reading →

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Professional Wednesday: Punctuating Our Stories (Not the Way You Think I Mean It)

Posted on March 23, 2022 by dbjackson

“Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” We all know the line. Even people who haven’t seen Casablanca know the line. (And please, don’t get me started about not seeing Casablanca. I mean, sure, it’s dated, … Continue reading →

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