How a Critique Group Exposed My Secret Flaws
Daniel Schwabauer
As I teach in The One Year Adventure Novel, you don't convince readers of a theme by placing it behind protective glass.
Unforeseen Endings & Other Gifts of a Flexible Novel Outline
Daniel Schwabauer
Outlines aren’t the only way to bring shape to a story. A bad outline will drive you compulsively in the wrong direction. Instead of giving advice, it will give commands. It will tell you to write what it summarizes, regardless of how the story has changed in your mind during the telling. “I am the story,” a bad outline will say. And if you listen to it, your story will be bad too.
Fair Winds & Following Seas – A Summer Workshop Reflection
By Daniel Schwabauer
The OYAN Summer Workshop always changes me. And every year I struggle for the words to explain how and why.
Mapping Your Writing Traits
By Daniel Schwabauer
I don't believe in shoe-horning every author into the smallest possible box. But if I want to understand my own strengths and weaknesses, the W/S scale is a good place to begin. Better still is this two-dimensional chart for mapping four traits simultaneously.
Wordsmith or Storyteller: Embracing Your Identity
By Daniel Schwabauer
Writers tend to be predominately either Wordsmiths or Storytellers. Recognizing your own tendencies is not a magic formula for writing success, but it can be enlightening.