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Updates Made by Brian Yansky
Friday, April 1, 2016 5:57:01 AM
Brian Yansky wrote a blog post titled :
Brian said, "Once I know the ending, and sometimes this takes me a while, a draft even, I can start figuring out how to design my novel. I need to know where I'm going to know how to get there, to make every scene work toward that destination. Endings, so..." more
Friday, March 4, 2016 5:32:54 AM
Brian Yansky wrote a blog post titled Write like You. Who can do that better?:
Brian said, "Most important? Write like you. Who can do that better? Find your way of expressing your way. It's hard at first. New writers often want to write like the writers they love. They mimic them in various ways. That's OK. Writers will get past trying to..." more
Sunday, February 7, 2016 4:46:01 AM
Brian Yansky wrote a blog post titled Take What Your Stories Give You:
Brian said, "Big Believer in Boom FactorI've written about the martial art of writing. I've done martial arts and I noticed that writing is like it in this way: you have to do a lot of things at once without thinking when you write. You can do this because..." more
Sunday, November 1, 2015 8:22:33 AM
Brian Yansky wrote a blog post titled How do you finish a first draft? Low Expectations:
Brian said, " The trick to writing and finishing a first draft of a novel is simple. Ready? Low expectations. I’m not saying you should adopt this as a philosophy for life, but for a first draft of a novel, absolutely. A first draft is a pale..." more
Friday, October 2, 2015 8:10:02 AM
Brian Yansky wrote a blog post titled Characters Who Surprise:
Brian said, "There are so many things to talk about when you get to thinking about character. We want characters who surprise us--in a good way. By that I mean not in a WTF way--that character would never act like that. Or, I don't understand at all why that..." more
Monday, September 7, 2015 9:46:14 AM
Brian Yansky wrote a blog post titled Story ideas are everywhere:
Brian said, "When people learn I'm a writer (at a party or some social event--not a writing function), they often tell me they have an "idea" for a story. It is a great idea they tell me. An idea so original that they are certain it will make them a million..." more
Friday, July 10, 2015 6:50:50 AM
Brian Yansky wrote a blog post titled give yourself time--- between drafts and revision:
Brian said, "If you're like me you have a love/hate relationship with your work. You get really excited about a sentence you write or a cool idea or a cool new character. You feel good about it all. Then you feel really bad. Then good again. It's great. It's..." more
Wednesday, June 3, 2015 2:40:36 PM
Brian Yansky wrote a blog post titled "And know the place for the first time":
Brian said, " from T.S. Eliot “Little Gidding”"We shall not cease from explorationAnd the end of all our exploringWill be to arrive where we startedAnd know the place for the first time"I was thinking about the Hero's Journey and the way that some..." more
Wednesday, May 20, 2015 10:37:49 AM
Brian Yansky wrote a blog post titled Bad Writing Advice: write what you know:
Brian said, "If we could only write what we know there would be no Harry Potter, no One Hundred Years of Solitude, no Red Badge of Courage. So many great novels would have never been written because the writer tried to stay on the narrow road of his own..." more
Tuesday, May 12, 2015 7:32:53 AM
Brian Yansky wrote a blog post titled :
Brian said, "Here's a link to a post I wrote on why character is not plot. I'm thinking about plot a lot lately because I struggle with it so much and because I see other writers struggle with it so much. You have to be able to do a lot of things to get novels..." more
Monday, April 27, 2015 6:14:00 PM
Brian Yansky wrote a blog post titled Why do they do what they do?:
Brian said, "Sometimes I think a very large part of writing is figuring out my characters' motivations. Why do my characters do what they do? Yes, it has to do with what they want and who and what stops them from getting what they want. And it also has to do..." more
Sunday, March 15, 2015 7:37:06 PM
Brian Yansky wrote a blog post titled The number one thing that a novelist has to have is...:
Brian said, "Novelists need a lot of things to write well. They need some talent with language and story. They need to have read a lot to learn the structures of fiction. They need to study and understand all the elements of craft-- like characterization, plot,..." more
Sunday, February 15, 2015 9:35:15 AM
Brian Yansky wrote a blog post titled :
Brian said, "Here's a link to an interview I did and also a giveaway of free hardback copies of Utopia, Iowa at this site. I have several other interviews coming up about writing that will be on the web. One is about Merlin and his effect on my writing and on..." more
Tuesday, February 10, 2015 5:57:09 AM
Brian Yansky wrote a blog post titled The Road to Utopia, Iowa, Was Paved With Rejection:
Brian said, "Utopia, Iowa, my YA novel, is being published by Candlewick Press today (FEB 10) and that’s a most excellent thing. I’m very grateful. But it almost didn’t happen. That is to say Utopia, Iowa’s road to publication was not a smooth..." more
Thursday, January 29, 2015 8:56:02 AM
Brian Yansky wrote a blog post titled Writing And Not Thinking:
Brian said, "I've written on writing in the moment before but I want to add something about my process here.One thing that was important for me to learn is that writing fiction is juggling many things at once and not thinking about any of them while you’re in..." more
Tuesday, January 13, 2015 10:58:30 AM
Brian Yansky wrote a blog post titled My best advice-? Keep Writing:
Brian said, "When people ask what my one piece of advice would be to new writers, I always say write and also read, which sounds kind of uninspired except that it is REALLY the best advice. Writers become writers by writing. They learn by writing. They learn by..." more
Friday, January 9, 2015 11:26:55 AM
Brian Yansky wrote a blog post titled The Fiction Puzzle:
Brian said, "Writing/ Fiction PuzzleI was thinking that it might be helpful to look at the process of learning to write using the idea of a puzzle. I am really thinking of two comparisons here: learning to write generally and learning to write a particular..." more
Friday, November 28, 2014 11:02:55 AM
Brian Yansky wrote a blog post titled Connections/ How to Make them in a Story:
Brian said, "The connections between characters and plot situation and setting and their relationship to internal and external conflict is what drives a novel forward. I struggle with this all the time. I think this simple way (Use THEREFORE, BUT and not..." more
Saturday, November 15, 2014 11:37:11 AM
Brian Yansky wrote a blog post titled Fear of Failure--Even Stephen King Deals With It:
Brian said, "Fear. Even Stephen King has it, and not because he scares himself when he writes. He fears failure—fear that he will fail to finish what he’s writing. He’s written something close to 70 books and he still deals with what every writer I..." more
Saturday, November 8, 2014 5:58:17 AM
Brian Yansky wrote a blog post titled Tips for Dialogue and an Elmore Leonard interview:
Brian said, "I love this Elmore Leonard http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1651959 interview because the king of writing dialogue is insightful and because he says a lot of things I think about dialogue. I love the part where he says..." more
Tuesday, October 28, 2014 7:05:25 AM
Brian Yansky wrote a blog post titled I CAN'T BE FAITHFUL--to genre:
Brian said, "So here’s my problem. I can’t be faithful. I’m not monogamous. When it comes to fiction, I just can’t do it. It would be simpler if I could be. But both as a reader and a writer, I’m drawn to many different genres: literary, fantasy,..." more
Wednesday, October 15, 2014 6:46:02 AM
Brian Yansky wrote a blog post titled Even Character Driven Fiction Needs Plot & Utopia, Iowa GIVEAWAY:
Brian said, "PLOT IN THE CHARACTER DRIVEN NOVEL & GIVEAWAYJust listed this morning (Oct. 15) on goodreads—I’m giving away 5 signed ARCs of the very novel I use as an example in this post (what a coincidence!)—Utopia, Iowa. Sign up for the giveaway..." more
Saturday, September 27, 2014 7:11:12 AM
Brian Yansky wrote a blog post titled HOW SETTING BECOMES A CHARACTER:
Brian said, " Setting is the poor relative in the fiction-writing craft family. We give character, language, voice, plot, a lot of attention. Rightly so. But setting also deserves some love. So here are two ways to think..." more
Tuesday, September 2, 2014 4:25:54 PM
Brian Yansky wrote a blog post titled How to promote Your Novel--one simple idea from the reluctant promoter:
Brian said, "First my disclaimer—I’m a reluctant promoter. I try now and then, but I struggle with that part of being a writer. So I’m inexperienced. But I have been reading up on it a little, trying to know more. One thing I keep reading is..." more
Saturday, April 23, 2016 6:06:37 AM
Brian Yansky wrote a blog post titled One Simple Way to Help You Write Better Fiction(language):
Brian said, "I think the tell and show problem happens because in the throes of creation we're grasping for main points of action and reaction and variations of them. We want to get them down before we lose them. I do this. A lot.So what happens is we get the..." more