The Art of Critiquing

Welcome to Toolbox Saturday where you’ll find tools for various things from writing to whatever. It’s come to my attention that there are a lot of us who don’t have a clue how to honestly critique. We can tell you we like your story (or hate it), but we leave out the most important part [...]

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1 Simple Way To Critique (And Be Helpful)

In honor of Easter weekend, I decided to “resurrect” an old post. Giving an honest critique can be difficult, but even more so is giving an honest critique that actually helps the writer improve his or her writing. The following is one method I like to use that is simple and useful. Sandwich Critiquing You’ve been [...]

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Improve Your Writing with these Editing Tips by Dustin Wax

Sorry folks, but this cold virus is really causing havoc here, so I’ve decided to do you all a favor (read: not write anything in gibberish as that seems to be how I’m speaking today ) and repost Improve Your Writing with these Editing Tips by Dustin Wax. He’s got some great advice I think [...]

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3 Rules For Writing A Good Book Review

I blame academia for my inability to fully enjoy movies, television shows and books. Okay, so earning my BA in English isn’t the only reason I find it difficult to enjoy those things. A lot of it has to do with being an Independent Author and valuing well-written stories over flash. I cannot sit down [...]

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7 Links That Will Make Editing Your Work Easier

As I work my way through Darren Rowse’s 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, I decided to take on his earlier challenge to write a post with seven links. Since this post was originally going to be about critiquing or editing, I went with seven links on that subject. Without further ado, here they [...]

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Sandwich Critiquing

You’ve been asked to read a friend’s manuscript. After dutifully plowing through 100 pages of less-than-perfect, sometimes entertaining, but often difficult to understand prose you’re left with one question: how do you tell your friend her manuscript needs a lot of work? Unless you really don’t care about hurting your friend’s feelings and possibly losing [...]

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The Art of Critiquing

It’s come to my attention that there are a lot of us who don’t have a clue how to honestly critique. We can tell you we like your story (or hate it), but we leave out the most important part — the why. Critiquing isn’t just about misspellings and bad punctuation. It’s about understandability, what [...]

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POD People Scares Me

I’ve been reading POD People by Jeremy Robinson. I admit I’m only on chapter 3, but so far it’s made a whole lot of sense… and scares the hell out of me. Here’s why: “What happens to Ford when tires start blowing out? Sales tank. What happens when you eat at a restaurant and find some [...]

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Critters Makes for Better Writing

My husband is a big Star Wars fan.  He watches all six movies often, though there’s a couple he watches more often than the rest.  He collects the action figures (never call them toys to a “true” collector).  He rushes to the video store that sells the comic books the same day they call him [...]

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