by Tom Hogan | Feb 24, 2023 | Book Coach, Screenplays, short story, So You Want to Be a Writer, Teaching, The Forever Game, Writing
After all these years of writing and having some of my work published, I rarely, if ever, considered word count. It wasn’t until Newsweek told me to lose 200 words of my carefully (and beautifully) constructed article on pedophilia in the Catholic clergy that I...
by Tom Hogan | Feb 6, 2023 | Book Coach, Screenplays, So You Want to Be a Writer, Teaching, The Forever Game, Writing
If you think you’re a pretty good writer (which I do) and you want to become a better writer (which I also do), then my advice is to hire an editor. Bear in mind, though, that even though you’re paying them, a good editor will be direct and honest, often brutally so....
by Tom Hogan | Jan 3, 2023 | Writing, Book Coach, Screenplays, So You Want to Be a Writer, Teaching
In my previous novels, I’ve stuck pretty much to the maxim: write what you know. Readers who don’t know me might raise their eyes at this statement, since my three novels have been about sexual violence and prison life; genocide; and pedophilia. In my defense, I...
by Tom Hogan | Dec 6, 2022 | Screenplays, So You Want to Be a Writer, Teaching, The Forever Game, Writing
As promised, every two weeks (until I catch up to the work in progress), I’ll include a chapter, in sequence, of my novel-in-progress, The Forever Game. What follows is the opening chapter (remember, there were two different prologues, one for the script and one for...
by Tom Hogan | Nov 3, 2022 | Screenplays, So You Want to Be a Writer, Teaching, Writing
If you read the previous blog, please continue reading. If you’re joining this blog at this point, I’d recommend going back and reading the previous installment. Here’s the deal: I’m writing my next project as both a script and novel. I opened both with the...
by Tom Hogan | Sep 1, 2022 | Writing, Personal, So You Want to Be a Writer, Teaching
For better or worse, with my previous three novels I’ve known the ending before I started writing. I appreciate those authors who say they just start writing and go where the characters take them. I’m not one of them. I know where the novel ends and usually where it...
