No one knows that better than I. I've been at it since I was six years old! But being part of a community of writers helps to take the edge off.

We all want to make our writing the best it can be and, to that end, we all need advice from time to time. A community of writers helps to provide that. From now on, I want to be part of your community.

On this page, you'll find tips on writing and editing. Use what you can to strengthen your own writing. If you work diligently, there's a good chance we'll end up sitting side by side autographing books someday!

Here's my writing advice:

For tips on publishing your writing, click here.

Storytelling Through Poetry: Part II

In Part I, we talked about story and character sketching. Once you have your main character(s) sorted out, and know what story you want to tell, you need to decide what your story's time-cycle will be. This information will
help you to frame your story. If, for instance, your story takes place during the course of one week, you'll want poems that occur each day of that week to mark the passage of time. If, on the other hand, your story takes
place over the course of a year, you might want to have poems about your character's birthday and poems about, or that take place during, particular holidays. You'll want poems that establish the change of seasons, etc. Collectively, these poems will help to establish the story's passage of time.

Okay. You're storyline is set, you have your characters, you've determined the story's time-frame. Now you need to compile a preliminary list of poetry topics through which your story will unfold. This list will vary, depending on your particular story, of course, but three subjects belong on every list: The introduction, the turning point, and the closing.

Introduction: This is a poem or series of poems that introduces the main character and sets the scene of the story.

Turning Point: In every story, the main character learns, or grows, or changes in some way. You will need to capture that change, that shift through a series of poems.

Closing: These poems resolve the main issues of the story, tie up loose ends, etc.

The remainder of the list of poems will, as I mentioned, vary from story to story. The idea, though, is that you need to lay out a plan for developing your story before you start to actually craft the poems.

When I was working on What is Goodbye?, my book on grief, my topics list first focused on the stages of grief, because I knew I wanted to explore each stage during the course of the book. So that list included: Anger, Denial, Regret, Fear, Acceptance. A subsequent list included the social events connected with death: The Wake, The Funeral, The Burial. Later, I
added to my list subjects like Dinner, because I began to wonder how my characters must have felt sitting at a table where one chair was suddenly empty. Setting down these general topics helped me to build a framework for my story.

Once you have your list of topics, where do you go next? Tune in to Storytelling Through Poetry: Part III!

Later—