Today I want to talk about a common convention writers use in their stories to build intrigue: unreliable narrators. These add a bit of mystery and often leave readers talking about the story long after it’s finished. But not every Read more
Let’s get back into the Character Under A Microscope series where I dig deep into character development. Today, I want to talk about walking. Walk is one of those bland verbs that can be replaced with something more descriptive. Everyone Read more
I’m a huge supporter of continuous learning. Obviously, right? This is, after all, one of hundreds of articles I’ve written on the author business and writing craft. But what I’ve realized recently is that learning can also be a crutch. Read more
Whether you’re a panster who makes things up as you write or a plotter who has a story outline before writing, your first draft will not be perfect. Overwriters will have too much fluff in their stories, and underwriters will Read more
This week I’m going to keep my post short yet hopefully powerful. I want to discuss what keeps readers interested in a story. Is it the villain? The setting? The romance? When we boil everything down to the very basics, Read more
Info dumps happen when a large amount of information is given all at once in a story. Typically, these dumps are about worldbuilding or character backstory. As the writers, we know all these fun details about our characters and setting, Read more
Every story should have some tension in each scene, though the level of tension will vary. Major turning points in the plot, like the midpoint or climax, will be higher while the connecting scenes might just have a low level Read more
I’m not going to lie to you; I’ve never launched a book…yet. I considered waiting to discuss this topic until I had, but then I realized it didn’t matter. No one strategy for launching a book will work for everyone. Read more
As writers, we hear the phrase “Show, don’t tell” quite a bit. Like most things, there is more than one layer to this advice. A while back, I gave some advice on deep point of view, and in that post Read more
Lately, I’ve been thinking about marketing and what my books have to offer the world. I wrote a post a while back on defining your audience, but today I’d like to focus on what makes people want to buy books. Read more