News & Missives

Writer Q&As: When to Stop Revising

How do you know when to stop revising? I presume that if one does get picked up by an agent or publisher they will have their own editor who will ask you to revise again, so when do you know to leave it alone?

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Writer Q&As: Matching a Writer with a VMI Mentor

How do you match a writer/manuscript with a VMI mentor? [Donna Lee Mae]

First, it’s important to say that I’m the matchmaker! However, mentors review the writer’s application I’ve matched them with before I inform the writer whom they will be working with.

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Writer Q&As: Voice and Proximity

Everytime I ask myself a question, I answer it. Lately, this is the question:  how do you find your voice in the telling and not sit too far back? In other words: how do you find that intimate tone when the material is so personal?

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Writer Q&As: Ordering a Poetry Manuscript

I’m a poet who writes sixty or seventy poems and THEN tries to group them into a manuscript. This is a difficult way to find a through line or order as I don’t automatically have a beautiful way to group the poems.

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Writer Q&As: Writing Speech

I have two characters that play central roles throughout the story.

Granny mutters and mumbles to herself, talks aloud to the dog and the TV.
Question, should her talking aloud be in:
➢ Quotes?

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Writer Q&As: Exploring Scene

How do you “dig deep” in a scene to write it in the most compelling way possible? Are there techniques for exploring different options? [Carol Cram]

Assume that you need you to dig deeper whenever you write a scene: it’s rare that this is not the case.

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