Rob Parnell's Writing Academy Blog

  Writers are a stubborn lot. Sometimes it can take us decades to learn a subtle truth about writing that forever changes us - and our writing - for the better. At various stages in my writing career, more experienced writers and critics have said (in no particular order) "watch your point of view switches," "careful not to use the author's voice," "learn format and punctuation assiduously," "don't over justify your concepts," "don't overuse adjectives or qualifiers," "dump cliche and adverbs," "be totally honest in your writing," "know your characters inside out," "make your motivations believable," "write for the reader," etc., etc. Each time I felt an inner resistance and fallen back on the age-old feeling of "I know what I'm doing - that's my style." Only to realize, sometimes years later, that my peers and critics were right - and that I should have l

  I bought some software last night to help constructing stories. In the help file I found a useful note on the four questions we need to ask ourselves about a story before we start writing. These questions help clarify our idea and also let us know whether we have a story that is compelling enough to start work on. Many ideas falter at this stage - which can useful because doubt can alert you to the weaknesses in an idea and to stop you from pursuing a story that may lose impetus half way through. We all know there's nothing worse than starting a story, then running out of steam when it seems to go nowhere or end up in a hole. Getting stuck during the writing of a story is no fun at all! However, answering the following questions can also help you solidify an idea into a story worth telling. Question One: Who is your main character? Often we may be tempted to think that it's a combination of characters that make a story interesting. True - but usually not from the