Wednesday links: Researching setting, ending your story and multiple projects

I love regularly reading tips and advice articles in certain subjects — particularly writing and publishing. I don’t always need the information right then, but I know that it’ll eventually come in handy. Or at least, I hope it will.

I know there are a lot of other people out there who feel the same way I do, but sometimes it can be difficult to find every useful advice article that’s out there. So I thought I’d bring you a few.

Here are the tips and advice articles that jumped out at me the most over the past week.

1. Oh, the Places You’ll Go! from Writer Unboxed: No novel is complete without a setting. It can help set the mood, shape your characters and even affect your plot. So you need to make sure that the setting is clear and specific, whether you novel is placed where you grew up or somewhere you’ve never been. Excerpt: “Good books take us on a journey, both literally and figuratively. As a writer, I’ve started to think more carefully about the literal part. Because when it’s done well, setting impacts pretty much every facet of a story — plot, voice, character, theme, etc.”

2. Crafting an Ending that Sings from Pub(lishing) Crawl: The ending of a novel needs to fit with everything that came with it. Sometimes, though, that can be a bit difficult to accomplish. A good ending takes work – work that may include going back and re-reading your entire manuscript. Excerpt: “I LOVE endings. The momentum of drafting hits its stride right before the climax, and suddenly I’ll just SEE how all the plot threads and character arcs are going to gel together.”

3. Why You Need Two WIPs from Wow! Women on Writing: Have you ever noticed that sometimes, when you’re stuck, the best thing you can do is stop what you’re working on and move on to something else? Well, you’re not alone in that. And there’s likely a good reason why working on something new helps you to figure out something you’ve already started. Excerpt: “My son is living proof of a writing belief I’ve always held –that you should never be working on just one project. If you spend all your writing time musing on one WIP you can become overwhelmed.”