(Hi, folks! For the time being, some, most, or all of the fol­low­ing links will still revert back to the orig­i­nal Writ­ing About Writ­ing web­page over on Blog­ger. This is not a mis­take. It just takes a long time to move thou­sands of arti­cles. Thank you for your patience as we nav­i­gate this tran­si­tion.)

The Very Basics

Not every­one is ready to dive into the sub­tle nuances of word choice’s affect on tone or the dif­fer­ence between close and dis­tant nar­ra­tion. Some peo­ple need to know what’s the dif­fer­ence between first per­son and third or what irony means. Before we can appre­ci­ate the sub­tle ways in which a good set­ting echoes the theme, it might be impor­tant to know what both of those things are. Before we can talk about how effec­tive it can be to have the direct char­ac­ter­i­za­tion through a focal­iz­er be in con­flict with the indi­rect char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of dia­logue, it’s going to be impor­tant to know what focal­iz­ers, indi­rect and direct char­ac­ter­i­za­tion, and dia­logue are.

These are arti­cles with some of the very basics. For the start­ing writer, the vet who wants to brush up on the fun­da­men­tals, or just the old hand who isn’t sure they know what every­thing is called, these arti­cles will help spell out some of the things expe­ri­enced writ­ers some­times assume all writ­ers know.

Point of View
The Very Basics of Sub­mit­ting
Writ­ing Query Let­ters
Types of Edit­ing

Ques­tions? Com­ments? Want a future arti­cle to go into more detail? Mail me through our con­tact form. Just be sure to pick the right top­ic from the drop down menu, and check the archives—particularly the F.A.Q.—to see if your ques­tion has been asked before.

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