Uncategorized

The Trouble With Tea – What Spielberg Does & etc.

Something that I see too often in manuscripts is an eating scene where nothing happens. Years ago, I read a Writer’s Digest article talking about this. The gist was that the “trouble with tea” was that too many authors are tempted to show ordinary life (drinking tea or an eating scene) to just rehash the plot or dump information. Readers get bored. They put down the book.

So, let’s dive in.

  1. Watch the video to see how Spielberg makes eating scenes work harder for him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epTFIBFby3A

  2. Read this article by James Scott Bell: https://killzoneblog.com/2016/07/how-to-write-eating-scene.html

  3. Some overview: https://amyloujenkins.com/how-to-write-dinner-table-scenes/

  4. Remember to describe the food! If you can’t taste it, neither can your reader. To say that sensory details are lacking in the manuscripts I see is an understatement.

Making your writing work harder and smarter for you is something I’m passionate about. Every scene should be accomplishing multiple things.

With every scene are you:

Advancing your plot?

Showing us more about your characters?

Creating atmosphere?

Immersing us in your world?

Making us turn the page?

Letting us see through your main POV character’s eyes?

So, if you have a food scene (or an ordinary world scene), make sure multiple things are happening.

Do you struggle with this? Have you noticed boring food scenes in books? Are you tasting the food you’re talking about that? Let us know!

Uncategorized

Three Book Limit?

A client sent me this today. Can you believe that Amazon has a three book limit for uploads per day? That really puts the AI slop monster into perspective.

So how do we combat this? The only way I know is to go deeper in on cultivating our relationships and becoming the best artists we can be. We will always crave the authentic, especially in a world with so much fake.

Keep building community.

Keep showing up for yourself.

And when you hear news like this that might be overwhelming, or make you feel like your chances of “making it” are even more slim, focus on the deep truth.

There is only one you and you were created for a purpose. You have a divine spark! Dare I say a divine inferno of creativity within you! There is so much you haven’t tapped into yet.

There will always be negative news, especially in publishing, but you can break the chains and change the game over yourself.

Your light will attract light. Your light will give others the permission to shine. And then that combined light will be a supernova. How amazing is that? 🤩✨⭐️🌟💫