Karen Douglass, Author

Karen Douglass, Author: Prose & Poetry

Tag: novel structure

  • A Novel Approach

    Writing a novel is work; no news there. But it helps to gain perspective from other writers. I was feeling stuck about the plot line for my work in progress, hiking up a steep slope with no idea how to reach the summit. Not a good idea for a Coloradan. So, in desperation I checked…

  • Writing by Recipe?

    Writing workshops are useful. I like being in a room full of scribblers, hearing about the variety of projects underway, discussing questions that come up and inform us all how we might structure a piece of writing. But…the approach to writing is, at times, like a cookbook: add more detail to spice it up, tenderize…

  • Stagecraft in Fiction & Memoir

    Immersed in writing a fourth novel, I’m thinking about the overlap between live theater and the narrative forms of fiction and memoir. Theater has the advantage of the visual set, no need for description of the place or the characters.There they are, well lighted, voices projected to the upper gallery, free to move in meaningful…

  • I, You, He/she/it/they?

    Recently I attended a workshop on point of view and came away confused and overwhelmed. The teacher presented us with six versions of POV with short examples. Too much for me to absorb in one hour. And it all felt prescriptive, as if I ought to select a POV before the story or memoir begins.…

  • Endings and Bananas

    In the Sept/Oct 1917 issue of Poets & Writers, Joyce Maynard, in her essay “Patience and Memoir,” writes that for years she wrote a syndicated newspaper column, Domestic Affairs, in which she always felt the need to find “some kind of conclusion” even if there was none. I see that as one of my issues,…