
Writer Unboxed
9,908 FOLLOWERS
Writer Unboxed began as a collaboration between aspiring novelists Therese Walsh and Kathleen Bolton in January, 2006. Also includes contributors from all walks–from the not-yet-published to bestselling authors and industry leaders–and that it’s grown into such a rich community for writers.
Writer Unboxed
11h ago
Among the many powerful things I’ve read recently, the one that struck deepest as a writer of fiction came from Robert Stone’s piece in Paths of Resistance: The Art and Craft of the Political Novel. The piece was titled “We Are Not Excused,” and the section in question was this:
The practice of fiction is an act against loneliness, an appeal to community, a bet on the possibility that the enormous gulf that separates one human being from another can be bridged. It has a responsibility to understand and to illustrate the varieties of the human condition in order that consciousness may be enlarg ..read more
Writer Unboxed
2d ago
Unfortunately, in word count as in life, there is no magic number. This applies both to the overall number of words in your manuscript (How many does it take? Enough to tell the story) and the daily word count goal you may want to set for yourself during the drafting phase. While some writers do just fine with “write as much as you can,” I’ve found over the years that I, personally, benefit from setting a more specific goal.
Want to see if a daily word count goal works for you? Here are three ways you might go about setting your personal number. One of these might resonate more than the others ..read more
Writer Unboxed
3d ago
I’ve spent the past two months—that’s not an exaggeration—working on three pages of my novel. I’m in the revision stage, and the pages I’m wrestling with are the first three pages of the book and even though I know these characters inside out and know the plot and know all the elements that go into making the opening compelling and smart, I still haven’t nailed it.
We all know that opening lines and paragraphs and pages are critical, the thing that hooks your readers into wanting to know what happens next and into caring about what happens next. The opening is what sells your book to readers ..read more
Writer Unboxed
4d ago
The other morning at my desk, fifty pages into writing a new novel, I found myself inventing a scene set in Central Park in the mid-1980s, a time when I had lived in New York with my boyfriend (now husband). I was reminded that in the early ’90s, after moving to Philadelphia, I had drafted a whole novel set in New York during the mid-’80s. I hadn’t thought about that book in years. But here I was again with a fictional setting I had first explored thirty-five years earlier. I clicked out of my new manuscript and went to search my files for the long-forgotten book.
Back then, even with compute ..read more
Writer Unboxed
5d ago
The other day, while sharing pages with my critique group, I had a scene where a character finds a camera loaded with film in her dead friend’s apartment. The response from my crit partners: “Oooh, I can’t wait to find out what’s on there when she gets it developed.” My response? “Yeah, me too!” I’m only about 15,000 words in and who knows what happens next—I certainly don’t.
Clearly, I’m not a plotter. There’s a lot of talk about writers being either pantsers (writing by the seat of your pants) or plotters (scenes are laid out with white boards, index cards, or plotting programs before a sing ..read more
Writer Unboxed
5d ago
Greetings, WU Family. In my first post of the year, I’m introducing you to Ann Michelle Harris. Ann Michelle is an attorney by day, and at night, she writes romantic suspense and fantasy/speculative fiction with diverse characters and positive social justice themes. In today’s Q&A, she shares how her work in the areas of poverty, abuse, and child welfare guides her, how that work inspired her novel, North, and why she feels building community is one of the most important things a writer can do for their career.
GW: One of my favorite parts of this series is learning about an author’s origi ..read more
Writer Unboxed
5d ago
WU community, I have a confession:
I’ve been in a “reading slump” for the last decade.
By “reading slump,” I mean that the novels I’ve finished belong to a highly exclusive club. I’ve accidentally pivoted toward nonfiction—Wendell Berry and Erich Fromm alongside Masha Gessen and bell hooks. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but sometimes I miss that sneak-a-book-under-the-covers feeling of a good, juicy novel.
So, what happened? Too much screen time killing my attention span (I mean, yes)? I’m getting old and now everything that’s not aligned with my personal preferences is what’s wrong wit ..read more
Writer Unboxed
5d ago
[Note: This post is occasioned in part by a discussion of “what to write now” begun here in January by Rachel Toalson and David Corbett.]
Last month I suggested that any work of fiction has one of two main purposes: 1) to show us what to do, or 2) to show us who we are. I like breaking fiction down into dichotomies. It clarifies things. I stand by last month’s dichotomy, and the loose association of those purposes with two types of stories, stories of fate or stories of destiny.
Another useful dichotomy is to look at fiction as having one of two effects: to cause us to fear, or to cause us to ..read more
Writer Unboxed
5d ago
Petri Damstén
Are you burned out?
We live in an age of hyper-productivity. If you’re not doing a million things (presumably well) you are somehow failing.
The only acceptable excuse for lack of productivity is “I’m soooo stressed out!” which is worn as a badge of honor. (Either that, or you have a serious illness, preferably one that results in hospitalization.)
As writers, we’re supposed to be putting out any number of books, and either querying or self-publishing.
Add to that building our newsletter list, as well as creating content for every social media under the sun – there’s always a n ..read more
Writer Unboxed
5d ago
Please welcome back long-time community member Keely Thrall as our guest today!
Keely writes contemporary and paranormal romance and is a proud member of the Stays Up Too Late Society of Book Addicts. (Their motto: “Just one more page, I swear!”) Her next short story, “The One That I Cherish” – in the Finding Forever Limited Edition Wedding Romance Collection – is available for preorder. Learn more about her books on her website, HERE.
Read on to learn about her efforts to grow a local writing community — especially if you live near Dulles, VA!
Welcome, Keely!
In March of 2024, I heard a call ..read more