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Pilgrimage Pilgrimage | words and music, and the

English - Blues, Thriller, Writing
http://johnbairdrogers.com/
Pilgrimage · 2W ago

Google and Real Places

Google is wonderful.  For a person writing thrillers, it’s a critical resource.  Need a Russian phrase?  No problem. An overhead view of a village like Hainburg an der Donau in Austria (my s...
Pilgrimage · 1M ago

Critique Groups and the Mirror

As I pass through the stations of writing skill improvement, I am realizing that I have a custom set of writing weaknesses.  I got a notion of it from critique groups … the same issues kept ...
Pilgrimage · 2M ago

A Birthday Present from Grammar

I got a great birthday card, the front of which said: Dear people of the World, I don’t mean to sound slutty, But please use me whenever you want.     Sincerely,     Grammar A great card on ...
Pilgrimage · 2M ago

Genre, Storytelling, Literary Fiction

I recently applied to a contest that asked, as part of the upload, what the genre of my novel is.  I answered dutifully, Thriller. Yes, I know that the judges have to have some way to classi...
Pilgrimage · 3M ago

Pantser … or not

There are two approaches to writing fiction.  A Pantser writes from the seat of the pants. The writer lets the characters pull the story along. An Outliner (maybe we should say ‘Engineer’) l...
Pilgrimage · 3M ago

Writing with Feeling

I read a submission guideline the other day that sliced novelists into ‘beginner’ and ‘experienced’ using the following cleaver:  “you may consider your work for the experienced category if ...
Pilgrimage · 4M ago

Pitch-Query-Synopsis

Over the past couple of months, I’ve attended three conferences (one by Internet) that featured pitches or queries.  Friends asked for a summary. The summary grew longer than a blog post, so...
Pilgrimage · 4M ago

Querying, Rejection, and Rule 9

I just finished going to a pitch conference at The Loft (Minneapolis).  As is usual with these events, there were education sessions, often involving panels of agents.  In one, the agents di...
Pilgrimage · 5M ago

Wearing a Suit and The Oxford Comma

I went to a shiva yesterday for a friend’s mother.  It was in the evening.  A bit uncertain about dress, I wore a conservative suit and a tie.  When I arrived, I realized most of the people ...
Pilgrimage · 5M ago

Long words

My critique groups often lean on me for using bigger words than necessary. Particularly people who read and adore Hemingway. My weak defense is accuracy: I want the reader to get an exact pi...
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