by Jamie Chavez | Mar 19, 2018 | The Writing Craft
I love learning the names for editor-y things. Like parallel construction and hiatus break and inciting incident and rhetorical device. Sometimes I make up names for problems I encounter when I don’t know the Official Editor-y Terminology—like name-calling and...
by Jamie Chavez | Apr 17, 2017 | The Writing Craft
Sometimes you set out to do a thing for one reason … only to find it was so much more than you ever imagined. More than you could have actually planned. In this case, I learned just how much value can be wrung out of focusing on the first chapter and how it relates to...
by Jamie Chavez | Mar 30, 2017 | The Writing Craft
The old man’s face was pale gray and his eyes were closed. Agnes saw the glint of a long knife in Estanguet’s hand and she leapt forward. He saw her and flicked the blade toward Arsov’s throat. She halted, the element of surprise lost. “He killed my sister,” Estanguet...
by Jamie Chavez | Jan 16, 2017 | Books You Might Like, The Writing Craft
I’ve already written about The Summer Before the War—which I read first (and which is, in fact, the more accomplished novel)—but I really enjoyed Helen Simonson’s novel-writing skills in Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand (the New York Times calls it “funny, barbed,...
by Jamie Chavez | Nov 5, 2016 | Creativity, The Writing Craft
I haven’t seen Hamilton, but I know a lot of you are fans—and in this article about the making-of documentary Hamilton’s America, author Charles Wendig offers up storytelling lessons, noting, “there’s nothing more fascinating than watching an interesting creator in...
by Jamie Chavez | Oct 8, 2016 | The Writing Craft
I love it when I find an article that gives me a name for something I’ve noticed in editing, but didn’t know what to call it. Such is the case when I read this article at Jane Friedman’s website: “2 Stammer Verbs to Avoid in Your Fiction.” What the heck is a stammer...