Two things: First of all, I have made two new advances into the online world. I recently made an author’s website that you should be certain to explore. I’ve never made a website before, but it was really surprisingly simple and I’m pleased with the results. The other slightly less impressive development is, I’ve joined… Continue reading News!
Learning From Novels: Leah Good’s Counted Worthy
For the first of hopefully several novel discussion posts, I’ve chosen a novel I got for Christmas last year. Leah Good is a young, self-published, Christian novelist. This can be a good thing or a bad thing. I was convinced to put Counted Worthy on my Christmas list because there was some excitement over… Continue reading Learning From Novels: Leah Good’s Counted Worthy
Don’t Do The Mirror
People really struggle with figuring out when and how to describe their characters’ physical appearances. Some people just throw it in there in the middle of the narrative as a rather long, off-subject aside. Others skip it altogether. But one of the most common and lazy ways to get the information out there is the… Continue reading Don’t Do The Mirror
Don’t Do The Mentor
To start my off the series on clichés, I’m going to expose one of my favorite hackneyed characters: the mentor. Mentors serve important roles in fiction. They play to part of an example, somebody who’s been there. The main character needs guidance. They want things explained to them. They want to ask questions of… Continue reading Don’t Do The Mentor
Series Starting Soon
Hey. So, I’ve done a lot of general “fiction writers’ advice” so far. I thought I’d start a series soon on clichés. It’s always fun for me to find ways around typical fiction clichés, and I’ll try to make it fun for you too. I also am going to start occasionally including feature posts on… Continue reading Series Starting Soon
What Are Readers Looking For?
Something occurred to me recently. I was thinking about novels—successful novels, unsuccessful novels, classic novels nobody reads, cheap paperbacks everybody reads—and I was wondering…why do people like certain novels more than others? When a reader picks up a book with the intention of reading it, what are their expectations? What do they want? Well, I’m… Continue reading What Are Readers Looking For?
Can You Keep a Secret?
Nothing keeps me reading like secrets. In fact, I might even venture to say that nothing is more important to a good plot than the ability to keep a secret. The delicate art of hiding, hinting at, and revealing secrets is not only the essence of a good mystery or suspense story. It’s also the… Continue reading Can You Keep a Secret?
Talking about the Weather
I keep hearing people say that yet another detail you should never include in your fiction-writing is reference to the weather. Nobody wants to hear about it, they say. Just get straight to the action, don’t bother setting the scene, nobody has the patience for that, just go, go, go. And most importantly, never… Continue reading Talking about the Weather
On Children and Families
Here’s something to know: if you can’t write about children, don’t. Children are extremely complex creatures. Though everyone has been one, some have them, some work with them, and others are barely not them, they’re still some of the most difficult people to portray realistically. I see it all the time, even in ‘real’… Continue reading On Children and Families
A Word on Editing
First of all, happy Halloween. So. I’m in the process of publishing my first trilogy, as you know. Since I was going to be putting a lot of time (it won’t be available until March of ’15) and money (I’m subsidy publishing, so I’m out $2,000) into the project, I thought it would be in… Continue reading A Word on Editing