Rob Parnell's Writing Academy Blog

Once you know your premise, it will make writing your story much easier and quicker. Using a premise as a starting point is about creating a CONCRETE idea that will not allow you to drift and wallow in self-indulgence. A premise is a rudder and a steering wheel. It’s a road map for your fiction writing. Let me explain why in terms easier to understand. In the visual arts, that is: TV and the movies, the premise is EVERYTHING. People will give you millions of dollars for a great premise for a show BUT it must be specific and compelling. Think about the TV shows you love and then summarize them. A bestselling author and a female New York cop investigate murder mysteries and their relationship deepens over time. CASTLE A Smithsonian anthropologist and an FBI agent investigate murder mysteries and their relationship deepens over time. BONES An ex Baseball player and a private eye investigate murder mysteries and their relationship deepens over time. PRIVATE EYES Notice any ki...

Writing is not a race. Nobody wins it by getting something out there first. The work that succeeds is often not the most original. It is the work that is finely honed to perfection before it gets released. There's really only one duty writers owes to themselves and their readers - and that is to constantly strive to improve. Ask any seasoned writer and they'll tell you that getting better at the craft is probably the most fulfilling aspect of writing. Because you are effectively getting better at communicating your ideas - and placing your worldview into the minds of others. To me, this is an almost magical concept. So - constant improvement - how does one achieve it? Here are nine tips: 1. Read Like it's Going Out of Fashion You've heard it a million times before. You can't love writing without first loving to read. Read a lot. Read everything. Analyze writing and writers. Study what works, what doesn't, wonder why and learn from it. Realize too that the pu...

  When writing fiction, writers are forced to consider the protagonist and his or her agenda. We need to ask what our hero's goals are and where they want to end up as people. Now usually, there is an antagonist whose desire to thwart the hero's goals is at least as strong, if not stronger than the hero's. But what about writers? Who is our main antagonist? Alas - usually ourselves. When it comes to writing, there's that little guy inside your head who wants to criticize - endlessly. His voice reminds you constantly that you have no special talent, that your writing is average at best, and that you should never, ever show your work to anyone because, well, it's crap. Helpful little fella. And to think, he lives inside of us! Suppressing the inner critic is a necessary part of the writing process. If we couldn't silence the little rascal, we'd never write anything. Indeed many writers get stuck on page one be...

A writer friend asked me the other day,  "When I read, I find I'm influenced by other authors. Depending on who I'm reading, my writing style is either playful, deep sounding or whatever. How can I stop writing like other writers and find my own voice?" (She also added that I might want to write an article based on my response - hence what you're reading now!) Before we get on to practical tips, we should cover some basic preconceptions about voice. First of all, your voice should never be some affectation you acquire or work on. I think you know what I mean. When we're at school or in the office, we're told there's a way to say things - a style we must adopt to conform to the medium. Many novice writers think the same applies to fiction - that there is perhaps some predetermined mental attitude and/or demeanor one should adopt - usually a 'superior, more learned' version of ourselves - to sound more authoritative when tell...