Author: Laurie Boris

Laurie Boris is a freelance writer, editor, proofreader, and former graphic designer. She has been writing fiction for over twenty-five years and is the award-winning author of four novels. She lives in New York’s lovely Hudson Valley. Learn more about Laurie at her website and her Amazon author page.

Climbing the Second Novel Summit

I know a few people who have written a novel, and content with checking the task off their bucket lists, never started or completed a second one. To them, the one completed work represented many things. An itch to be scratched, a whim, a challenge, a story that needed to be told. My cousin, a musician, felt compelled to write a novel about his band. It was a pretty good novel, and he loved writing it. But having told it, he moved on.

Frankly, I don’t understand how a writer can stop at just one novel, but I also don’t understand why some people like black licorice or sheep brains or boxing, either. Or why my husband can open a box of Oreos, eat one cookie and put the rest away. The world is a strange and fascinating place. Continue reading “Climbing the Second Novel Summit”

Best Resources For Fiction Writers

Search the Internet, and you’ll find hundreds of books and websites about how to write and sell fiction. I’ve scanned many over the years, but there are very few I go back to again and again. Here’s a cross section of what I’ve found to be among the best. As usual, your actual experience may vary.

1. The Art of Fiction by John Gardner
Meant for beginning writers, The Art of Fiction contains insights even experienced authors may find helpful. Among other valuable tidbits, Gardner offers good insight into plot structure and fictional time versus real time. Although it was written some thirty years ago, the advice is still current.
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Eavesdrop Your Way To Better Dialogue

Ideally, dialogue in fiction is supposed to be a representation of how people actually speak. (Extracting the polite greetings and chitchat and such, unless that chitchat reveals story or character.) So how better to learn the way people actually speak than listen to them conversing with one another?

Before I get arrested as an accessory to violation of privacy, I’m not saying that you should put your ear up to walls (unless something particularly juicy is going on and you stand to make a few bucks selling the story to the tabloids) or hang out outside people’s domiciles with a shotgun mic. I’m talking about a little public eavesdropping. Don’t think you can pull it off without blushing, staring, urinary incontinence, or otherwise giving yourself away? Try some of my favorite Harriet The Spy eavesdropping tips: Continue reading “Eavesdrop Your Way To Better Dialogue”

On Murdering Your Darlings

Editing process underway?

We writers are known for killing off characters in creative ways. Wood chippers are a favorite method. (Oh, I’m the only one who does that? Uh…never mind. I’ll just…move that thing back into the garage.) Yet the writing adage “murder your darlings” did not originally refer to killing characters but cutting out unnecessary words. While William Faulkner and Elmore Leonard have been credited with it, the original quote is attributed to Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, who wrote:

“Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.”
Continue reading “On Murdering Your Darlings”