Tag: Excerpt

Crafting Emotional Resonance – Example Critique

In my series on crafting your stories to resonate with your readers’ emotions, I asked for excerpt submissions that I could take and apply those concepts to in order to provide an example of what I’ve been talking about. So today I’ll be showing you a piece of Grace A. Johnson‘s writing which she submitted, along with my commentary!

In case you missed it:

Crafting Emotional Resonance: Part 1 – Character-Driven Description

Crafting Emotional Resonance: Part 2 – Character Reactions

Crafting Emotional Resonance: Part 3 – Repressed Emotion

Crafting Emotional Resonance: Part 4 – Precise Prose

Critique Structure

I’ve never done a critique for a blog post before, so you’ll have to bear with me as I develop a layout for it.

First, I want to lay out Continue reading “Crafting Emotional Resonance – Example Critique”

Snippet Sunday: The Heart of the Baenor

Catessa stepped onto the porch of the temple and clambered up one of the pillars. The carved stone dug into her hands and scraped in places the architects had failed to smooth, but she ignored the pain. She reached the top, sprinted across the roof, and perched herself atop a lonely spire. From the spire she could see across the glowing city to the place she despised the most- the inner ring. She stared at it for several minutes before tearing her gaze away in rage. The night sky glittered from the light of a thousand stars as she pulled out her pendant. Hate filled her gaze and blurred her vision as she pulled her arm back and threw the jewel as hard as she could to the slick gravel. It glistened in the torch-light and hit the ground with a brittle crack. As she peered down, she could have sworn the firelight shone white against the purple jewel.

It’s just a trick of the light, she told herself. But she couldn’t keep her eyes from it. Something about it had changed.

She slid down from the spire, darted back across the roof, and climbed down the pillar, muttering to herself all the while about stupidity and good-for-nothing nobles. When she reached the ground, landing hard enough to jar herself, she sought out the pendant. It was open. Her heart thundered as she picked the locket off the cobblestone.

Inside there were no drawings, no notes. Only a single white rose petal, brittle and aged under Catessa’s fingers. Catessa snapped the locket closed in disgust. She didn’t need this. But still, it could lead to-

What am I thinking? she asked herself. They’re nobles!

She threw the locket down again, and this time it didn’t snap open. She began to walk away, but stopped short and turned back to pick it up, shaking her head the whole time.

Snippet Monday: The Archery Champion

I said I was going to do a snippet this week because I haven’t the past two weeks and then I was busy all day yesterday and today, but I SAID I WAS GONNA DO IT AND I’M GONNA DO IT. Better late than never, right? (I need to get back to Saturday being my blog-post-writing day. :P)

The Archery Champion is some book in the Daughters of the Hylands series (I can never keep straight what order books 3-5 go in.) It’s about Malanda, oldest daughter of King Elk and Queen Crimson of Remera, who are main characters in The Half-Elves before they become king and queen. (They’re also my favorite.) Malanda loves archery and decides to start entering tournaments in The Hylands, which are known for their archery, and then… I’m not sure what happens because the planning in this series was terrible. But I have that much and I’m working off of that for this excerpt. XD

Without further ado… Continue reading “Snippet Monday: The Archery Champion”

Snippet Sunday: The Heart of the Baenor

Snippet Sunday: The Heart of the Baenor

This week’s Snippet Sunday is rather short, since I really wanted to share with you a piece of writing that I’ve cut from The Heart of the Baenor. I really like this piece, but pieces of the plot have changed too dramatically for it to work anymore as-is, and I was only able to piece a tiny bit of it back into the current draft. Enjoy. :) Continue reading “Snippet Sunday: The Heart of the Baenor”

Snippet Sunday: Untitled DotH book

This book doesn’t have a title I like at all, so I’m not using a title in this post. “DotH” is short for Daughters of the Hylands. The Daughters of the Hylands is an eight-book subseries of my Hylands series (The Half-Elves, etc.) and this is book… three. At least for now. I might end up reordering them whenever I get around to actually writing them. But anyway, this story is the least solidified story of the series in my head, so this should be interesting. XD Enjoy.


Continue reading “Snippet Sunday: Untitled DotH book”