Spotlight On: The Lace Reader

This is a winner, folks. The Lace Reader is the best-crafted modern adult novel I've read in the last five years. It's not out yet, so I'm not going to include any spoilers in this post, but the book is a great study in character development in relationship to plot and environment. The book is sometimes startling, but is never misleading. It's got all the psychological intrigue common to the modern novel or play, with enough of a sense of magic (grounded in the environment) and physical threat to satisfy a fan of Camelot and Robin Hood. The sense of place is remarkable. The characters are as vivid as the imagery. This is the type of book that you should just read: don't bother to read the back or find out what it's about; just get ahold of it and read it.

Shakespeare as Icon

The graphic designer Richard Evans has come up with a series of clever representations of Shakespeare's play. To see them, click here, then click on "Design Portfolio." On the red bar, click on "oddities," then on the fourth square. Now scroll over the numbers to see "Romeo & Juliet," "Hamlet," "King Lear," or the Scottish play.

Try distilling your story down to three such representations: beginning, middle, end; or the three most evocative moments in your story. Make sure the imagery you're using to depict these moments - both during this exercise and in your actual storytelling - is bold and interesting.

Outlines: A Bird's Eye View

Many writers draw up outlines prior to starting a story, and many others groan at the thought. But whether you start writing when you have a fully formed plot or only a few lines of dialogue, an outline can be a useful tool in revision.

Outline, or write on index cards, your plot points. Make yourself take a step back and look at the overall story. Are there points when it drags? Do you have pages of description, or whole scene of spectacle or special effects, where the story doesn't move forward at all? Consider cutting or condensing the scene/pages or, if your story supports it, adding in at least one plot point to the scene.

This exercise can also be useful for character development. Map out the plot points relevant to one character - perhaps to your part in the play. Does your character grow and change over the course of the story? The more characters with a strong character arch, the more interesting the story.