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01Mar 2013 by diannagunn

Two More Questions

I was really stunned by how many of you responded with wonderful honesty to my three questions last week. I'm thrilled to be building a community of writers who can share with each other openly, and I love hearing from you guys. Today I'd like to dig a little deeper, and ask some hard questions. I'd like to know what you think of me and the work I do here. Please be honest--I'll never be able to improve Dianna's Writing Den if you guys don't tell me what needs improvement. Like any human I'm imperfect, and without your help, there's only so far I can go. So please do me the courtesy of answering these two questions in the comments below: 1. What do you like most about Dianna's Writing…

Important Questions about Your World

Inspirational, Nanowrimo, Writing

Worldbuilding means different things for different authors. For traditional fantasy authors, it involves creating a whole new world and figuring out as much as possible about the people who live there and the world itself. For urban fantasy authors, it means figuring out how this version of Earth is different from our own. For mystery and contemporary romance authors, it means researching or developing the town where a story takes place. For science fiction authors, it often means creating not just new worlds but the technologies to get a species from one world to the next. The meaning of worldbuilding also varies from author to author. Some authors develop only the parts of their world that their characters will at some point be in. Others like to develop every corner…

5 Questions to Ask Yourself When Starting a Project

Novels, Workshops, Writing, Writing

This is the beginning of a series of posts about plotting and outlining. During this series of posts we will look at various aspects of plot and story, and then we'll talk about different types of outlines. The goal is that this series of posts will help you plan out your next novel-length project. Since we are at the very beginning, today I would like to talk about that beginning. These are some of the important things you have to consider when you're going from a basic idea to a planned story. 1. Why do I want to write this story? There are many different reasons why we choose to write the stories that we do. They range from being as simple as the story needs to get out to…