The Agile Writer

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August 19, 2015

Learning to Read like a Writer

Reading and writing are akin to inhalation and exhalation. Technique can be taught, but the essence—the art—of writing is not a one-to-one transferrable skill. It takes so much of who we are, what we have experienced, to make writing that resonates. It is deeply personal. An internal probing of our own experiences and sensations. So, how do we learn to […]

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August 12, 2015

. . . and Where?

On to the question of place. Much like time, place is an under-examined element of creating a compelling and intelligible story. I, for one, was not sure how to get my character’s bodies gracefully around the space of my fictional world. There was a lot of walking into rooms, and climbing into cars, and other mundanities in my first draft. […]

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July 31, 2015

When?

Who? What? When? And Where? Somewhere in elementary school we were all told that these are the questions you must answer to write a story. I want to focus on the last two, which often get overlooked. Without them, a story is incomplete. The seemingly trivial matters of time and place are two elements of storytelling which are as integral to […]

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July 24, 2015

Tracking Changes

One of the most beneficial elements of the Agile Writers Method is our tightly-knit critique groups. But what do you do with the edits from your two beloved co-sojouners? There is some disagreement among the Agile Writers. One camp believes that your edits should be entered immediately every week, while they are fresh in your mind. The others—in the name […]

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July 1, 2015

An Audience of One

I have heard two competing pieces of advice about considering your audience when writing a novel. One: define your audience. Be specific. You have to know who you’re addressing in order to create a cohesive work. Two: don’t worry about who you’re writing to. In fact, try to forget that you have any desire to publish the book and have […]

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June 24, 2015

Writing to Discover What We Know

The title of this post is borrowed from the famous quote by Flannery O’Connor, “I write to discover what I know.” It is one of the truly mysterious pieces of the writing process that through it I come to know my own mind better. Each successive rewrite seems to take me deeper, closer to the reality of what is happening […]

Guest Blogger Writing 0 2 min read
June 15, 2015

Writer’s Block

When words abandon a writer, it can feel catastrophic. But, it happens to all of us—the professional and the amateur, the published and the unpublished, the new and the seasoned. The question is how do we treat this most devastating of writing ailments? Firstly, we must establish that writer’s block exists. There is some controversy over this. According to Anne […]

Guest Blogger Writing 0 3 min read
June 10, 2015

Developing Secondary Characters

The Agile Writers approach to writing a novel focuses clearly around the hero figure and their story. But, the more you step into the world of your hero, the more you recognize the need for fully developed secondary characters. The hero can only have as much depth as his or her world, after all. So, while deliberate strategies for fleshing […]

Guest Blogger Character 0 3 min read
June 3, 2015

Drafting 1, 2, 3 . . .

I have recently begun the second draft of my Agile Writers novel. For some, it seems, the second draft is a breeze. They go through and plug in the edits they got from their wonderful critique partners, humming along and spitting out fifteen or twenty pages a week. This has not been my experience. I have had a very difficult […]

Guest Blogger Writing 0 3 min read
May 27, 2015

Literary vs. Genre: Do I Have to Choose?

So, just how wide is the gap between Literary and Genre Fiction? I found two relevant recent articles that helped me think about this topic: Firstly, “Literary Fiction vs. Genre Fiction” by Steve Petite, in The Huffington Post. This article concludes, “In essence, the best Genre Fiction contains great writing, with the goal of telling a captivating story to escape from […]

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