Discarded Plans

Will you settle for something better?

I was really proud of the plan I’d created for the next issue of the magazine. Just a few days after sending May/June to the printer, I’d decided on good mix of articles for July/August.

Then an amazing article—a must-run item—crossed my desk. No problem; I’d swap it for my plan’s lead article and leave everything else intact.

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Competing Voices

Does your narration fit your POV character?

There was nothing wrong with the car’s fender: nice, shiny, and black. I’d not have noticed except the rest of the car was ivory.

That was much the problem with the narration in a novel I just critiqued. While the words and the sentence structure were fine, they sometimes didn’t match how the POV character … Continue reading

Uncomfortable Feedback

How do you encourage needed criticism?

Their names don’t appear in the masthead. They work as volunteers. But without them, the magazine I produce would miss its potential.

They serve as my proofreaders, but they do much more than catch typos. They alert me to awkward phrases or unclear passages. They tell me when I overuse words. They ask tough questions.

Most of the time, I … Continue reading