How do you feel once you’ve finished a novel? #amwriting Click To Tweet Okay, so you might say, “I’m never finished.” I feel that way as well. It seems there’s always tweaking. But, once the novel is sent off, gone, out of your reach, how do you feel? Good? At a loss? Jumping up and […]
What Are Beta Readers and How to Find Them?
Okay, so you’ve finished your first draft. You’ve done everything you can with it. You’ve read it and re-read it to the point of total exhaustion. In fact you’ve gone over it so many times, that you’re not sure you’re reading the words on the page or if you have the pages memorized. What’s next? […]
Still Life with Bread Crumbs–Review of Anna Quindlen’s book
I don’t know how I stumbled on Still Life with Bread Crumbs, but I’m glad I did #bookreview Click To Tweet It was a very pleasant read. Anna Quindlen created a believable female character of a certain age. The book is about Rebecca Winter, a semi-famous photographer from New York City who has fallen on […]
What About the Setting? Tips for Making Your Setting Real
I love the “cold” mysteries. Those set in the cold regions–Sweden, Iceland, Norway. Why do I love those books? I love the settings. The characters are all excellent as well, but its the settings that keep me coming back time and again. In Henning Mankell’s series the setting, a small town in Sweden, plays as […]
Creating a Narcissistic Personality When Creating Villains
Many of the villains in the books I read are narcissistic personalities #writingvillains #amwriting Click To Tweet These are people who display a lot of cunning and very little empathy. They may appear as sociopaths, but their tendency to want recognition for their bad behavior suggests a tendency toward a narcissistic personality type. The Norwegian […]
What Works and What Doesn’t Work in Writing Fiction
As I’ve studied the art of fiction writing, I’ve learned that it is much more an art than a science. What works one day is proved false the next. What readers eat up today, they toss aside tomorrow. Clearly the art of writing fiction takes patience and a willingness to push the envelope. I’m reading […]
Tips to Write with Emotion without Overusing Exclamation Points
We all know it’s important to use good punctuation in writing our #fiction #amwriting Click To Tweet When we overuse commas, it distracts the reader. Conversely, when we leave out a comma, the reader may not understand what we are trying to say. Punctuation has an important place in the writing. But, is it the-be-all-end […]
Writers Helping Writers
As I struggle along with my new manuscript, I realize how much writers have to do alone. We create, edit and ponder all by our little lonesomes. Here is where I’d love to have a writing partner. Wouldn’t it be nice to toss ideas off someone, to ask them to read what you’ve written, to […]
Flash Fiction–The Critic
Today’s blog is a piece of flash fiction. Take a few minutes out of your hectic day and read this #flashfiction Click To Tweet It ends with a surprise. The Critic “Yikes! Don’t use that color green. It looks lackluster. You need to add more yellow.” Lackluster? What the hell? Okay. Whatever…I dabbed a bit […]
3 Tips for Writing a Series
Many of today’s writers write series books with recurring characters. Sue Grafton probably takes the prize for the most books with the same character with her alphabet mystery series starring Kinsey Milhone. Typical readers breeze through these books, enjoying the stories and feeling very comfortable with the characters. Those characters that reappear become the readers’ […]
