WWW(W): Writing on the Web this Week about Writing

It’s time for Writing on the Web this Week about Writing.  During your writing breaks, take a few moments to read some of these articles that have been floating around the internet this week.  I hope these articles will fill up your own writing well with new inspiration, and you might just discover a new blog to follow.

I have two things to share by K.M. Weiland this week:

1. Writer’s Manifesto.  I especially love “Embrace the Ecstasy of Writing.”  So true.    K.M. Weiland is a novelist and a short story writer who blogs at Wordplay and Authors Culture.  Check both of them out for inspiration and tips.
2. The article Three Character Archetypes in Fiction appeared on K.M. Weiland’s blog, Wordplay.  The post was written by Joe Bunting, a professional ghostwriter and fiction editor.  Bunting presents an interesting argument about using traditional fictional archetypes but layering upon them to make them uniquely your own.  “Shakespeare didn’t settle for archetypes. He recreated them for his own purposes. And so should you.”  Bunting offers up a useful Characterization tutorial at The Write Practice.  It’s packed with practical characterization advice.
3. I don’t know how it took me so long to find The Bookshelf Muse, but it is one of my new favorite sites.  The site was founded and is written by Angela Ackerman, a Calgary-based writer and Becca Puglisi, a Florida-based writer.  These two women have created the Character Traits Thesaurus.  In my opinion it’s genius. Scroll down the sidebar and find your favorite character trait.  Let’s use “Shy” as an example.  Ackerman and Puglisi will fill you in on the definition, causes of shyness, characters in literature or popular culture who display this trait, negatives, common portrayals of the trait and my favorite – cliches to avoid.  At the end of the entry they offer up some ideas for twists on the traditional shy character.   Try it out with your favorite traits.  While you’re at it, check out the emotion thesaurus and setting thesaurus.
4. Finally, the Book Pregnant blog was launched this month.  I discovered it just the other day and love the concept.  You can read the first post here.  Debut authors (you know I love debut authors) Sophie Perinot and Lydia Netzer met on Twitter and decided to launch a blog about and for debut authors.  The now have a cadre of 18 authors who contribute to the conversations about selling and nurturing the sales of your first novel.  The format is cheeky – with each entry placed in a category: one of three trimesters, delivery or postpartum.  Each author provides an honest look at the process of winning a book deal and seeing it through to the birth of the book.

Happy writing!