Author: Kristin Wolden Nitz
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Plotting Against Your Characters
Back in 2020, I wrote a series on plotting for the Institute for Writers. Here’s an excerpt. There’s a link at the bottom that will take you to the rest of this rumination, which distills down some of the best advice I’ve picked up through years of study. This blogpost started with a key question…
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Plotting and Planning: The Premise
A friend of mine mentioned that she was in the exploratory phase of her novel. I sent her a link to a set of posts that I did for the Institute For Writers a few years back. They distilled just down everything that I’ve learned about plotting in my writing career. Here’s an excerpt from…
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Shut Down!
It kept happening. My Dell laptop would freeze up and slowly shut itself down. I performed search after search of what could be causing it. Was it an update? Was it a fan that had too much dust? I made sure that I only had one program up when I was meeting a self-imposed deadline…
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Nitzpicking: A Manuscript Review Service
My manuscript review service focuses primarily on middle grade and young adult novels. It starts with a “Let’s Get Acquainted” review of a manuscript for thirty dollars. I spend a half an hour reading an excerpt and making comments followed by a second half-hour in which I briefly discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your…
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A Quick and Dirty Guide to Commas
To use a comma or not: that is the question. Here are some variations on punctuating dialogue and dealing with dependent phrases and clauses. The repetition could seem mind-numbingly boring, but I wanted to write the same content in a number of different ways for clarity with respect to punctuation and capitalization. PUNCTUATING DIALOGUE…
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Defending Irene
A thirteen-year-old American girl plays on a fiercely competitive boy’s soccer team during the year her family spends in Italy and experiences culture clashes both on and off the field. WHAT CRITICS ARE SAYING What keeps this tale from being just another soccer story with play-by-play action is the unique setting; the inventiveness of…
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U.S.A. vs Colombia at 6:00 pm Eastern and 3:00 Pacific!
During so many events at the Olympic games, the local crowds have tended to cheer against the U.S. But will they feel the same about the women’s soccer team? We’ll see. One fan thinks that Tobin Heath is secretly Brazilian. And there are rivalries in South America. My Peruvian sister-in-law is always happy to cheer…
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Defending Irene was Released as an E-book Today
My soccer novel about an American girl playing on an Italian boys’ team in Italy was released as an e-book today. Since DEFENDING IRENE originally came out in 2004, a few sections will undoubtedly read more like historical fiction. But so many things hold up. Italian women and girls are making slow but serious headway…
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Italy vs. German: Euro Cup 2016
My name and heritage might be German, but I’ll be cheering for the Azzurri this Saturday, July 2, at 3:00 Eastern time and noon Pacific time on ESPN 2 when the Italians take on Germany in the Euro quarterfinal match. After all, once upon a time, my American son dreamed of playing for the Italian World…
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A Few International Reads
On my bookshelf, I have all sorts of outdated Rick Steves guidebooks from the days my husband I roamed around Europe with our kids. In one of his books, he recommended that parents have their kids watch movies to help get them excited about different locations before they arrived. I remember picking up the Italian-dubbed…
Kristin Wolden Nitz 