May 2024 – Dr. Cox’s Desk

Building a Writing Habit that Works for You

There is no one right way to be a writer. Let’s start there. I don’t care if Brandon Sanderson accidentally writes whole novels while on vacation. I don’t care if Stephen King gets up early to write. I don’t care if you know someone who writes 2,000 words every day. They aren’t you. The importantContinue reading “Building a Writing Habit that Works for You”

Picking Perspective in Fiction Part 3: Narrative Structures

Perspective is one of the most important choices a writer can make in fiction. It’s also a complex concept with a lot of parts. In Part 1 of this discussion, we broke down the basic grammatical foundation for perspective, which accounts for the common 1st and 3rd person terms as well as past and present.Continue reading “Picking Perspective in Fiction Part 3: Narrative Structures”

Picking Perspective in Fiction Part 2: Limitations and Scope

Last week, we talked about the grammatical dimensions of picking a perspective (also called point of view or POV) for your story. For a quick recap, you basically get two viable options for “person” and two for “tense”: that is, you can write in 1st or 3rd person (I or they), and you can writeContinue reading “Picking Perspective in Fiction Part 2: Limitations and Scope”

Picking Perspective In Fiction Part 1: The Grammar

One question I see a lot in writing groups is “Which perspective should I use?” Frustratingly, the asker never gets a straight answer, no matter how much detail they provide. That’s because this is one of the fundamental questions for an author to decide, and really no one can decide it for them. It’s alsoContinue reading “Picking Perspective In Fiction Part 1: The Grammar”