Jo-Anne Richard’s blog

Develop your character’s voice if you want us to share in their highs and lows, get to know them and care about them. But what does that really mean? Sure, people sometimes have speech quirks. [...]

I was asked this again just the other day, and my heart always sinks: “How can I get my book published?” I understand, I really do. I know the feeling of desperation to have a manuscript noticed. [...]

A character is running through a crowd. She elbows passers-by, bumps into someone, shoves aside a group… Okay, we know what she’s doing, but we’re not there with her. Not unless we see (and [...]

Here’s a conundrum. One of our mentoring participants tried to solve one problem and, in the process, created another. As I mentioned last week, you should try to avoid long, static [...]

It’s a perennial problem for writers – the long conversation which reveals essential information. The solution? Well, the short answer is: try to avoid them if you possibly can, [...]

Be aware of your connection to your character – that silver thread that attaches you to them – and you’ll write better. I believe this and I’ve seen it again and again. Consider this paragraph, [...]

Each scene in a story is linked to one that came before it – even if not directly before it. Something happens in one scene, which causes a development in one that comes after. That gives a [...]

  If we read like writers, we find constant lessons – both good and bad – which will aid our writing. Here’s a lovely one from one of my favourites, Maggie O’Farrell. In This Must Be the [...]

We don’t need to follow your characters into the bathroom to brush their teeth, unless something significant happens there. Likewise, we don’t need to know every step they take to the kitchen or [...]

Memoir writers often start out with less trepidation than their fiction-scribbling peers. They already know the story, right? They’re familiar with the characters, and they can picture the scenes [...]

Writing is a solitary process, which means it can leave you feeling lost and not a little lonely. In last month’s newsletter, we set out to help you to help yourself by giving you our best advice [...]

I read a manuscript recently in which the protagonist gazed out at the sun-filled park. Okay, fair enough, perhaps it gives us some sense of his world … but not much, let’s be honest. There was [...]