Hi NaNo'ers and other writers! Check out this great list of storytelling tips from Pixar storyboarded Emma Coats that I just found written down in an old notebook of mine: --Simplify. Focus. Hop over detours. You'll feel like you're losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.

I've started a collection of great opening lines, and I thought I'd start a thread and add to it over time. Feel free to add your favorites too! (I haven't read all the books and stories; some I found on lists of great first lines.) >>> "This is how Mortimer Tate ended up killing the first three human beings he'd laid eyes on in nearly a decade:"

--Victor Gischler
Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse

One of my constant challenges as a writer is knowing when to narrate instead of dramatize--that is, when, instead of a full scene or dialogue exchange, to just *tell it to the reader in a sentence*. Usually I write the scene first and then groan and realize the pacing actually calls for a quick line of narrative instead. It feels great to get the pacing right, I just wish I knew before writing the scene.