Saturday, August 25, 2012

The bite-sized writing resources I'm so loving


Happy Saturday, friends!

We’re all abuzz about favorite writing tools today, and naturally, I was going to write about the awesome Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass. Unfortunately, somebody stole the topic…Linda! But I don’t blame you. The book is fabulous. Really the best that’s out there.

And not just to read, but to re-read. I think writing resources speak differently to us at different points in our journeys. Or even during different books. 

Anyway, I have something else fun to discuss, also the work of Donald Maass, and that’s his prompts. Have you seen them? You can find them on his twitter page. These things are golden, people!! I've copied a few random ones. 




He throws out on twitter and numbers them. He has around 80 out there now. I love to grab a random one and really think about it, think how I can use it. They are really good in small doses, no more than one or two a day, almost like points to meditate on. 



I find these prompts useful when I’m developing a plot, and I find them useful when I’m deep into revisions. I so love them. Can you tell? 




You can use them to strengthen and entire book, or just add color to a scene. I need to work with them more, because I sort of want them all to sink into me, to internalize them as a writer. But it’s fun to encounter them, too, to push up against them.




Oh, I can’t say enough about these babies. Thank you, Donald Maass! Go follow Donald Maass at @DonMaass on twitter. 

5 comments:

  1. Yes! I too love his twitter prompts!

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  2. I need to spend more time on Twitter. I follow Mr. Maass, but I can't recall seeing any of those. D'oh. Thanks for the heads-up. I'll try to pay better attention.

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    1. If you go to his twitter page and dig down, you can find them. They're easy to miss in the everyday tweet action!

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