Thoughts

I write a lot. Essays. Articles. Blog posts. All of them sharing what I’m thinking about. Maybe you think about these things, too.

Write Like an Actor
Jeannette de Beauvoir Jeannette de Beauvoir

Write Like an Actor

How would an actor approach your protagonist? How would they take your description and the situation into which you’ve plunged the character, and make that character unforgettable?

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Why Stories?
Jeannette de Beauvoir Jeannette de Beauvoir

Why Stories?

Yes, it’s true: I live in my head. Wherever my current story ideas take me. To Cuba or Nepal or California. With people who sing, or tend cows, or—sometimes—commit murder. And those places and those people are real. They may not even make it out of my head, but for the time they’re there? They are still very real.

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What’s in a Name?
Jeannette de Beauvoir Jeannette de Beauvoir

What’s in a Name?

My characters come to life as I write, not before. They shift and morph and often change the entire narrative arc of my stories. They become who they are in chapter five, or eight, or ten. So the name I started with generally just doesn’t fit the character as they emerge, as they talk with other characters, as they make choices, as they tell me where the book needs to go.

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Stuck? Try a Character Tarot Read!
fiction Jeannette de Beauvoir fiction Jeannette de Beauvoir

Stuck? Try a Character Tarot Read!

Doing a Tarot read for one or more of your characters is a terrific way of seeing them in another light, giving you ideas for their personalities and histories, and providing a little more depth to the way you write them for your readers.

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Meet Me at the Mall?
About The World Jeannette de Beauvoir About The World Jeannette de Beauvoir

Meet Me at the Mall?

I’ve always been fascinated with abandoned human structures, but as I mentioned, I’ve never seen any that rose and fell within my own lifetime as completely as malls, and so I find myself drawn to photographs and videos of these gargantuan empty places once echoing with so much life.

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Get Your Wheels on the Ground
About Fiction, About Your Writing Jeannette de Beauvoir About Fiction, About Your Writing Jeannette de Beauvoir

Get Your Wheels on the Ground

My first drafts are a mess. I have an occasionally faulty memory, and so nothing exists in my world until it’s written down. Because of that, I have all sorts of ideas I throw into the mix of a first draft. Some won’t stay the course. Some are frankly contradictory to other ideas I slammed down elsewhere in the manuscript. A few take on the glitter of inspiration and stay in place through publication.

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Is AI the Beginning or the End?

Is AI the Beginning or the End?

I’m not worried—yet. AI can’t do what I can do—yet. Computers can’t just create stories in a void; instead, they’re given a massive number of exemplars—works that are similar to what the computer is tasked to create—which is then broken down into data. AI reads the data using statistical algorithms to recognize patterns and relationships.

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Storms, Wrecks, and the Splendid Isolation of Writing
Jeannette de Beauvoir Jeannette de Beauvoir

Storms, Wrecks, and the Splendid Isolation of Writing

Writers think and create in isolation. Your isolation is really your workspace. No matter where you are physically, you’re simultaneously alone: it’s in your mental solitude that you build your story, that you interact with your characters, that you listen to the inner narrative voice guiding your craft. Isolation isn’t optional; it’s essential.

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