It is the Best of Times

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” I know Dickens wasn’t writing about building an author’s platform when he began A Tale of Two Cities, but it feels like it. At no other time in history did we have such technological wonders at our fingertips, but at no other time were there such difficulties being an author. We can no longer merely write; we must blog, tweet, speak in public and generate buzz about our writing, doing the work of marketers and PR consultants in addition to the writing that we love.

We must write, we must platform. We must start with action, we must start by getting to know our characters. We must be character driven, we must be plot driven. We must avoid purple prose, we must use vibrant descriptors. We must use dialogue to advance the plot, we must use description to advance the story. In short, writing now is like writing used to be, but with so much advice from leading authorities that contemporary pieces have evolved into fast-paced tomes minus the literary prose of yesterday.

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.” Endings are difficult. It is hard to end stories, hard to end novels, hard to end blog posts. The masters knew how to do it, far better than the cliché of riding off into the sunset or the prince kissing the princess back to life. In my genre, my endings are defined for me. The couple has to get together, happiness in their future. Getting to that ending creatively is a challenge. Once completed, I can put the work to bed and get some much needed rest myself.

Written for WordPress Weekly Writing Challenge “Stylish Imitation” http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2012/09/10/weekly-writing-challenge-stylish-imitation/