I’m working on editing my manuscript, and part of that is eliminating excess words. These fluff words can usually be deleted or replaced with fewer but more descriptive words. By eliminating them, you cut down your word count and make the text clearer. Below is a list of words I Read more
Writing an author bio is one of the hardest things authors do for their websites. We write stories about other people and places, and we think our own life is boring. Unfortunately, the world wants to know who we are and we have to tell them. Fortunately, we are storytellers. Read more
Fight scenes are something a lot of authors struggle with in their books. Most of us are not professional fighters, but the good new is you don’t have to be to write a good fight scene. The best fights have a few action sequences sandwiched between sensory details and internal Read more
If you decide to have a blog on your website, there are numerous topics you can choose. Mostly, blogging will be something you have to figure out for yourself, but there are two things about every blog that can be taught. The first is headlines, and the second is pictures. Read more
The last aspect of branding I want to discuss right now is fonts. Most people don’t think about it since typography is more subconscious than other branding, but it is important. People spend hours reading on their phones and computers, and they are subconsciously picking up signals from the text. Read more
Book Summary “Do you know the difference between cats and frogs?” “Cats have nine lives, but frogs croak every night.” The Funny Kid Toby Baxter is an overweight middle-grader who loves to make people laugh and dreams of a comedy career. Having suffered through the recent death of his father, Read more
Choosing brand colors was without a doubt the hardest part of creating my brand. I thought it would be easy. Pick two primary colors and done. I was wrong. Do you know how many shades of red there are? More than you can count. I’ve compiled some tools that will Read more
As authors, we don’t generally see our writing as a business. We write. We hope others read and enjoy. But, if you want to make a successful career of writing, you need to treat it as a business. That includes creating a brand that represents you and your works. This Read more
In most books, someone dies. Unfortunately, it’s usually obvious who will be the victim. Authors know they need to have some sort of death in their stories, but they may not put a lot of effort into developing that death. It may sound odd, but there is an art to Read more
I recently finished reading a fabulous book and was left with a mind-blowing question about the writing. How did the author write a plot that ended so badly but left me feeling satisfied? There was no doubt that what could go wrong did go wrong in this book, but I Read more