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Four Crippling Misconceptions About Deep POV
By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy) Myths and misunderstandings abound no matter what skill we’re trying to learn. An important part of learning is sorting out the misinformation surrounding a topic. So today I want to talk about what deep point of view isn’t. Misconception #1 – You need to write in first person to write deep(…)
Using a Montage to Handle Time in Fiction
By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy) Welcome back to my mini-series on handling time in our fiction. Today I want to talk about what I call the montage. If you watch movies, you’ve likely seen a montage. It’s a quick collection of images used to compress time or information. In other words, it’s a pacing tool. And(…)
Unbelievable Real Life: Caves Under Our Cities
By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy) Recently I’ve been researching what life is like in the oceans (I’m thinking about writing a book involving an underwater society), and I stumbled across this video. I wanted to share it because of the spectacular images the speaker shares. And listen carefully near the end of the video where she(…)
Managing the Passage of Time in Fiction
By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy) We’re almost constantly aware of the passage of time in our daily lives. We check our watches, set alarms, mark important dates on our calendars. We live by the change in daylight and the change in seasons. The passage of time will be equally important to our characters…and to our readers.(…)
Unbelievable Real Life: Underwater Art Museum
By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy) I’ve been to museums across the world, from Australia, to Europe, to Canada and the United States. I’ve never been to a museum under water. Until I saw this video, I didn’t even know something like this existed. When I watched this video, full of fantastic images of how submerged sculptures(…)
The Biggest Mistake Made By Self-Published Authors
By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy) I’m going to be a tease today. I’m over at Janice Hardy’s Fiction University for my regular monthly guest post, but I’m not going to tell you more about the topic than this–I’m sharing what I think is a fatal mistake made my self-published authors. And it’s probably not what you’d(…)
Will Humanity One Day Live on Mars?
By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy) The next milestone in space exploration seems to be putting people on Mars. NASA has mentioned plans to place human beings on Mars sometime in the 2030s. Non-profits like the Netherlands-based Mars One Project and private businesses like Elon Musk’s SpaceX intend to do it sooner than that. While there are(…)
6 Qualities of Bad Writing
By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy) Whenever a book becomes wildly successful (or even moderately successful), a funny thing seems to happen. Among all the people who love it, another segment of the population rises up who hate the book. Now, some of this could be sour grapes, spouted by people who’ve wanted to write a bestseller(…)
Cover Design on a Budget
By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy) A while back I wrote a post on How to Save Money on Editing Your Book. Since I’ve been covering How to Find and Select a Cover Designer and 7 Tips to Make the Most of Working with a Cover Designer, I wanted to make sure I also talked about cover(…)
Be the Hero of Your Own Life Story
By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy) Those of you who regularly read my blog might have noticed that I disappeared for over a month. That’s because 2015 went out worse than it came in. After driving to the hospital every day for a week to be with my husband, and another week full of follow-up appointments, I(…)