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Descriptive Language that Sparkles
Kill your darlings! Get to the point! Plot over prose! How many times have you heard advice about simplifying your writing for middle...
Russell Hirsch
Oct 25, 20232 min read
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SIWC - Simply Inspiring Writers' Conference
We all know the feeling of finding our tribe. Whether we were kids discovering new friends on the playground, teens navigating a new...
Russell Hirsch
Oct 10, 20231 min read
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Lessons from a First Novel: Worldbuilding from the Inside-Out
Perhaps nothing simultaneously excites and intimidates a fantasy author as much as worldbuilding—crafting the geography, history,...
Russell Hirsch
Aug 19, 2018
The Impossible and Inevitable Potter
Today is Harry Potter’s 37th birthday and in homage to the birthday boy-who-lived and the continuing summer festivities marking the 20th...
Russell Hirsch
Jul 31, 2017
Further Reading & Feminist Alternatives to the Hero’s Journey
Further Resources on the Hero’s Journey I hope you’ve found my summary of hero’s journey plot lines useful, but there is really no...
Russell Hirsch
Jan 7, 2017
The Hero’s Journey – Resolution
Happy New Year to all! We have reached the 10th and final stage of a hero’s journey plot line and a fitting stage it is for January 1st...
Russell Hirsch
Jan 1, 2017
The Hero’s Journey – Climax!
Huzzah! We have reached the Climax, the grand hurrah, the big shebang, a moment so exciting that only funny-sounding words can express...
Russell Hirsch
Dec 19, 2016
The Hero’s Journey – Propelling Event
The beginning of THE END! We enter the third and final phase of a hero’s journey plot line. Act 3 Propelling Event Climax (aka Death &...
Russell Hirsch
Dec 11, 2016
Magic Magnets
Writing a book is like building a puzzle made out of magnets. My last post, about how a character’s wishes can kick-start a story, made...
Russell Hirsch
Aug 22, 2015
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