At the writers conference, I interviewed Ally Robertson, editor with The Wild Rose Press and suspense author. She is a wealth of information since she works on the editing side as well as the writing side. I learned so many tidbits on how to improve my manuscript from just a Read more…
Bestselling author Steven James was gracious enough to take the time to answer a few of my questions—even though he was the keynote speaker at the writers conference and had a ton on his plate. Steven is genuine and funny, and it was such a pleasure to meet him. He Read more…
I had the chance to interview bestselling author Heather Burch at a regional writers conference. She writes Young Adult and Adult novels, and she is the most organized author I have had the opportunity to learn from in my career. If you want some expert advice and insight, this woman Read more…
Your book is full of hooks to engage the reader, and your book title is your front line. If you’re lucky enough to get your book shelved face out, then the cover art might be the first hook. However, most books are shelved with the spine out, and the title Read more…
Story structure comes in many variations with just as many ways to classify it. One of the leading voices on story structure is Orson Scott Card and his MICE Quotient. He divides all stories into four categories based on what element the author values the most when writing the story. Read more…
When you get deep into the research of writing novels, there is cross over with writing screenplays for movies. One phrase I recently came across in my research is the Four-Quadrant Movie Model. Though not all screenplay concepts can be used for novels, I think this one is something we Read more…
I already touched on the topic of internal conflict, and this week I want to dive into it a little more. Character wound is a concept that continues to surface in my writing research. A wound refers to an impactful negative event that happened in the character’s past and created Read more…
A hook is something that evokes intrigue in the readers. It can be a catchy title, gorgeous cover art, intriguing book summary, glowing book review, or compelling premise. Most often for writers, it’s little tidbits we put in the book to make the reader turn the page. Why Hooks Work Read more…
We already covered portraying a character’s emotions, and now I want to address the emotions we try to arouse in our readers. When an author writes something to get an emotional response from the reader, we call it an emotional beat. These are very useful in connecting with the readers Read more…
In this post, when I say scene, I’m not referring to a setting but to part of a sequence of events. A scene in a book is marked by breaks. These can be a chapter break or just a line break. These symbolize a jump in the story to a Read more…