Gail Carson Levine's Blog, page 24

On March 11, 2015, Tracey Dyck wrote, Does anyone have advice on varying sentence structure? I’ve discovered that I overuse a certain structure in my novel. (I forget what that type of sentence is called–bad me–but it looks like this: “Bob drove to the market, whistling along the way.” It’s the “ing” phrase that keeps cropping up.) It sounds like a basic problem, easily solved, but I’ve started highlighting every use of that structure in my manuscript…Chapters one and two have almost 50 uses...

On February 15, 2015, Melissa Mead (formerly carpelibris on the old blog) wrote, I’m having trouble figuring out who the story I’m telling is really about. (Gail, it’s the version of “Sleeping Beauty” that I told you about at the book festival.) It’s not the title character. I thought it was the Eldest Fairy’s story, but then the Youngest Fairy started to come to the forefront.The usual “Who has the most to lose?” trick isn’t working, because there are different ways to “lose.”

Any suggestion...

Before I start, I posted this in comments within the last blog: I asked my tech support, AKA my husband David, about photos or images appearing with names as they often did in Blogspot. This is completely optional, but if you want to, you just have to follow his instructions below:

The blog uses gravatars. Very easy to set up.

Go to http://en.gravatar.com/.
Establish a free account using the same email address as is used on the blog.
Gravatar will send a confirmation email.
Click on their con...

Thanks for weighing in on the changed blog! If you have more thoughts, please post them. By the way, what used to be called labels are nowcategories.

Now a little pre-post before the main event:

Without being specific, a writer recently asked on my website about advancing controversial opinions in stories that might offend some readers. This has come up before, and I’ve written a couple of posts on the subject. Basically, I’ve said that we shouldn’t stifle ourselves, and we don’t know whom we...

A short interim announcement: We’re snatching the blog away from Blogspot and moving it entirely into my website, so that people who don’t have gmail accounts can comment, too. This is an experiment for now. My worry is that unwelcome comments may come in. I’ll delete them, of course, but they’ll be there until I check. If that happens even once, I may moderate comments before they get posted, as I do on the Guest Book, or I may go back to Blogspot.

You’ll find differences, and I want to know...

On August 5, 2014, nevvawinter wrote, I have a question about beginning a story. I often come up with elements for a story, such as a setting and a character or some dialogue and a conflict, but I have trouble putting these elements together and adding elements to make a complete story out of my initial slightly-fuzzy vision. Any advice would be appreciated.

I have all those problems, too!

End of post.





Just fooling--about it being the end of the post.

I started The Two Princesses of Bamarre prequ...

If you don’t already know, Stolen Magic came out on April 21st, and I just finished my tour. I met a few of you, and I’m so glad I did!

On December 27, 2014, Elisa wrote, How does one make intricate little side-plots? To add interest and mystery to a story what must one do? I have one story that I've written quite a bit in and I know just about everything that is gonna happen, etc., but it is kinda boring me because there is one and only one plot that plods on and on, no interesting little sid...

First off, I’ve come across a magazine that seeks story and poetry submissions from high school students, and, since the submissions must come from students themselves, not from schools, I assume you can be home schooled if you’d like to submit. And the publication actually pays a fee if a work is accepted, rare in the poetry world. Here’s the link: http://www.hangingloosepress.com/submissions.html. Be sure to tell us here if you get an acceptance. Good luck!

Second off, I’ve announced on my w...

Here’s a preview of my upcoming tour for Stolen Magic. You’ll see that the farthest west I’ll be coming is Ohio and also that the time isn’t set yet for my first appearance in Washington, DC, but you can contact the bookstore for details.

Sunday, April 19th – Rhinebeck, NY
Oblong Books @4:00 PM (with Jeanne Birdsall)

Tuesday, April 21st – Concord, NH
Gibson’s Bookstore @6:30 PM

Wednesday, April 22nd – Madison, CT
RJ Julia @4:30 PM

Thursday, April 23rd – Fairless Hills, PA
B&N Fairless Hills @7:00...

On October 5, 2014, unsocialized homeschooler wrote, I'm on the fifth draft of my novel (oh the joy of calling my work a novel!) and I think I've lost my way. Originally the story was simple--boy likes girl, boy writes anonymous letters to girl, girl gets in trouble because of boy, girl hates boy, boy saves girl. Okay, so maybe not that simple, but now it's really complicated. There are multiple perspectives, half a dozen more important characters, and another subplot. With all this extra stu...