Maybe My Favorite Writing Blog

How did I not know about Gail Carson Levine's blog? I've actually met this author of so many great kids' books. Right after she published Ella Enchanted, she spent a day at at my school, and she was terrific. But her blog was off my radar till I followed a tip from inkygirl.com - which by the way has lots of excellent leads to follow, and some really funny writing cartoons available for bloggers-- like this one:




But I digress.
Gail Carson Levine's blog brims with carefully thought-out advice, writing prompts, examples. In a recent post about dialog, she answered a commenter's question, used examples from her own work-in-progress, and shared some very good prompts. Here's a bit of what she says about "white space" on the page:

You can achieve comforting white space with short paragraphs, a good technique when a character is alone. But when two or more characters are together, there’s a more important reason for them to talk than mere white space. It’s relationships. Put two people together, even briefly, even strangers, and there’s a relationship.

Most of her posts are answers to questions posed by her blog readers. So hurry on over there if you've got a serious writing question. If she hasn't already addressed the issue, maybe you'll be lucky and get some really great advice.