Writers' craft

Sally Page's third novel, The Secrets of Flowers, tells the story of a trainee florist who begins to research the flowers on the Titanic

Two novelists, an agent and a publisher each share their top three golden rules for publishing a book

We will discuss what a third-person omniscient point of view is in practice. Still, to understand this POV technique, you need to know what the word omniscient means. With these fancy-sounding words, we find the roots of omniscient in two Latin words. The first is omni, meaning ‘all' or ‘universal,' and the second Latin word is scire, meaning ‘to know.

Let me just start with: I do not condemn "telling." There's a place for it in every story, and that's mainly in the interstices between scenes.

But there's a reason we must show things when we are in scene and not tell: readers attach to clear actions and emotions. And that's key to pulling the reader into your story.

I launched my podcast Making It Up nearly three years ago with the goal of interviewing writers not for any particular work of theirs, but to talk to them about their lives. I didn't want to ask them what famous author they want to have dinner with or what their top five favorite books are ... yech.  Read more