In the Write

Clumsy title for a late career epiphany. But it has taken me a dozen novels with big and small publishers to fully understand a simple matter. Fiction must be written with the reader foremost in mind. Not the characters. Not the market. Not even one’s self. It’s the reader whose needs must always be front […]

BEMIDJI PIONEER NOVEMBER 18, 2023 WILL WEAVER’S NEW NOVEL IS A DEEPLY PERSONAL STORY By Dennis Doeden Will Weaver’s great aunt went to her grave with no justice from an assault that shattered her life. In his newly published novel, “Power & Light,” Weaver attempts to right that wrong.“I don’t know if justice can be […]

If you’re applying for writing grants and prizes, you’re often required to write an Artist Statement. It’s usually accompanied by your Bio and and a Work Sample. The latter two are easy. The first one can be agonizing. Essentially it asks you to explain who you are in relation to your art. Why your particular […]

“I have always believed in the kindness of strangers,” Tennessee Williams wrote. Me? I have always believed that really good writing will out. Will find its way to publication. We know that cream rises to the top of the jar. So does really good prose. Whatever your level–beginner, emerging, or a veteran writing making a […]

Actually, there’s no question. At least not to me. If a book-to-be comes at me from someone I know, or via the friend-of-friend, or the infinite interconnections of the writing and reading community, and it has at least some promise, I’ll try to help . Why wouldn’t I? Sad to say, I might be an […]

If you wanna be a writer you gotta be a reader. We likely all agree on that. But what kind of reader? It’s fun when a novel totally engages us. We get lost in it. It becomes, as John Champlin Gardner described, a “vivid and continuous and dream.’  We float along on the story. Let […]

Several authors use the title “Lost Boys,”  including Orson Scott Card and crime writer Faye Kellerman. But I want to talk about real lost boys–male tweens and teens in America who don’t read. Many grew up in book-free homes where the habit of reading was missing entirely. Others “hate” reading, though that’s often from fear […]

I wrote a full draft of my my most successful novel in three weeks.  However, every  novel is its own puzzle to solve, and it’s usually a mistake to hark back to the previous book (in this case, Memory Boy) when writing a new one. There are two very general approaches to writing a novel: […]

I often get letters from former writing students, or friends of friends who are working on a novel, or complete strangers who have read one of my books and are working on one of their own. Usually they have a central question about their writing project that they’re hung up on. I try to say […]

(Glasshouse Images/Alamy Photos) I recently kicked the hornet’s nest on Twitter.  A Minnesota author I know posted a cover photo of her forthcoming young adult novel. I tweeted back, “Excellent!” Meaning, “Congrats. I hope it does well,” etc. All the stuff there’s no space to explain on Twitter. I also added, “But how can we […]

Why? For what reason are you writing it? The subject is no small matter. Freud maintained that we do things for one or more of five reasons: “honor, power, fame, riches, and the love of women.” (Let’s just say ‘love’.) None of these reasons are necessarily wrong-headed, but there are better ones. How about joy? […]

Let’s say a good chunk of your novel is done. But then real life catches up with you. Family, work, health– any of the zillion reasons aligned against sustained, unbroken writing time. Or maybe you just need to set it aside. In the first draft you’ve’ve discovered some things that need more thought. Your plot […]