How a Winter Walk Solved A Writing Problem
Dear Vi, One of the story ideas I’ve got simmering on my brain’s back burner is set in a fictional town beside the Stewart River in Canada’s Yukon Territory. So far I only have the setting, but it’s important to me that the setting should almost be like character in the novel, not just a…
How to Show Tension in an Everyday Scene
This article explains a simple way to create scene tension in fiction. A strong scene shows a character with a goal, an obstacle in the way, and a decision about what to do next.
Knit One, Revise Two: What Knitting Taught Me About Revising My Novel
Dear Vi, I was staring at the draft of my novel the other day, contemplating a scene I loved but that didn’t quite fit the storyline. As I debated whether to fix it or ignore it, a post from my knitting friend Dee popped up in my feed. “I screwed the pattern up,” she’d written…
When Writing Alone Stops Being Helpful
Dear Vi, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how hard it is for women our age to ask for help. Why capable women struggle to ask for help Those of us who are over fifty weren’t taught to ask for help; we were taught to give it. We were raised to be capable, resourceful…
Using Clothing Details to Reveal Emotion
Dear Vi, My friend Jean wrote to me the other day with the link to Tom and Lorenzo’s Movie Advent Calendar, about Christmas dresses worn by characters in Hollywood classics, and how they were designed to do a specific job. She sent it to me because of our mutual love of dresses, but there’s a…
How a Mary Oliver Poem Helped Me Rethink Paying Attention
Mary Oliver’s Instructions for living a life:Pay attention.Be astonished.Tell about it. Dear Vi, Some time ago I came upon this poem by Mary Oliver and it struck me, it really struck me, that this is not something that is part of our world anymore. Paying attention, I mean. Being astonished by the little things that…
What I’ve Learned After Querying 40 Literary Agents for My Novel
Last month I sent out the fortieth query in my novel query process. Forty queries means forty carefully crafted emails, each with its own research behind it—researching agents, checking submission guidelines, double-checking agent interests, double-checking email address, and triple-checking that I’ve spelled the agent’s name correctly. (There are few nightmares worse than realizing you addressed…
The long, hard road to becoming a practicing book coach, part 1
Dear Vi, Around this time back in 2021, I completed a year-long training program, passed the three required practicums, and received my certification through Author Accelerator, under the founder, Jennie Nash. Getting my certification was hard. Sure, learning curves are always steep, and the course was (and still is!) comprehensive and very robust. But that’s…