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Category Archives: Prewriting/Story-Telling

Mondays are Prewriting and Story-Telling. Currently these are being covered by Courtney Cantrell.

The Short Synopsis (Or: Don’t Fritz Your Circuits)

Tweet Welcome back, dearest readers, to a brand new week of writerly fun! I hope that our posts thus far have got you excited about working on your story and working on your publishing. We here at Unstressed Syllables love to take the stress out of your “syllables” –whether you’re reading dialogue aloud to yourself […]

Cut It Out! C.S. Friedman and the Dreaded Prologue

Tweet Welcome, dearest writers and readers, to my first feature post! This week we’re on about prologues. Should we have them? Or should we cast them upon the cleansing fires of editing and rewrites, never allowing them to mar another of our manuscripts again? The Problem with Prologues Rumor has it that your editor (you […]

Working Titles and Story Questions

In today’s “Prewriting” post, we’ll discuss working titles, short synopses, and the ever-elusive story question.

The Benefits of Prewriting

Tweet In last week’s intro post, I posited that not prewriting your novel is like not taking a map on a quest (which happens to end with facing down a fire-breathing dragon). Today we’re going to take a look at that metaphorical map and figure out just what it really is. Caveat Caveat emptor: Let […]

Dragons, and Something to Blow Your Nose On

Tweet Author with Penchants Greetings, fellow writerly one! I’m Courtney Cantrell. You might know me from the column I used to write here at Unstressed Syllables, What I Learned About Writing This Week. Or you might have followed me over here from my own site, Court Can Write. In either case, you already know that […]

What I Learned About Writing This Week…from Being Irritable

Tweet If there’s one thing I’ve learned from a myriad of sources over the past ten years, it’s that I should never ignore myself when I feel irritable. I am not a person easily given to irritation. It takes a lot to push my buttons. Injustice is pretty much the only thing that can get […]