genre

Do You Judge Books by Their Covers?

February 5, 2013 Writing Stuff
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I’ll admit it. I do judge books by their covers, especially in this age of self-publishing. If authors don’t care about the quality of their book cover, it’s easy to assume they also didn’t care about the quality of their writing. Besides, we all have too many reading choices now, and just like agents and editors, we’re [...]

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Tagged as: advice for writers, branding, genre, Jami Gold, paranormal author, professionalism, romance novels, self-publishing, small publishers, traditional publishing

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Author vs. Characters: Can Our Morals Be Different?

January 31, 2013 Writing Stuff
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The recent talk of watching what we say on the internet and being aware of our brand has brought up several ways people come to odd conclusions about us as writers. Despite all our work to ensure that our behavior supports who we are and what our brand is, people will always form their own impressions. [...]

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Tagged as: advice for writers, branding, censorship, character flaws, conferences, genre, Jami Gold, listening to characters, muse, paranormal author, romance novels

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The “New Adult” Genre: Why Does It Exist?

January 8, 2013 Writing Stuff
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Publishing industry news has exploded with stories about a new genre, called New Adult. The New Adult genre is meant to bridge the supposed gap between Young Adult (teen) books and general Adult fiction books. Every news site from the New York Times to Publishers Weekly has been giving their spin on the genre ever [...]

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Tagged as: advice for writers, branding, fan fiction, genre, Jami Gold, Jami's rants, paranormal author, romance fans, romance novels, YA

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Writing Research: A Pain or a Gain?

November 27, 2012 Writing Stuff
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Readers often think that fiction writers just make stuff up. And that’s quite true—when it comes to most stories and characters. However, the supporting details of settings, props, jobs, and plot events are another matter. Whatever genre we write, we usually have to do some research in the course of drafting and revising our story. [...]

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Tagged as: genre, Jami Gold, Jami is insane, listening to characters, paranormal author, perfectionism, setting and description

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Are Your Characters Based on Real People?

September 6, 2012 Writing Stuff
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One of the stereotypical author interview questions is “Are any of your characters based on real people?” And I’m always struck when an author answers “Yes.” Usually, they’ll even share that so-and-so was based on such-and-such person. Sometimes they’ve based a character on a friend or family member. Sometimes they’ve based a character on an [...]

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Tagged as: antagonist, character flaws, genre, Jami Gold, Jami is insane, listening to characters, muse, paranormal author, writers are insane

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Worldbuilding, Genres, and Reader Expectations

August 16, 2012 Writing Stuff
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After I agreed to do a guest post for my friend Melinda Collins, she suggested I write something about worldbuilding. Despite being a paranormal author who continually invents worlds slightly different from our own, I haven’t written many posts about that topic yet, so I sat down to brainstorm ideas. Okay, my beta readers have [...]

Tagged as: advice for writers, feedback, genre, guest blogs, information dump, Jami Gold, Jami is insane, paranormal author, premise, setting and description

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How “The Amazing Spider-Man” Rocks Subtext

July 10, 2012 Writing Stuff
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Subtext? In a comic book movie? Really, Jami? Yes, really. Now, I’m not calling The Amazing Spider-Man groundbreakingly genius or anything, but it’s an, er, amazingly good movie character-wise compared to… Oh, say, the Green Lantern. If you remember from my Green Lantern posts about how how not to write plot or characters, I freely admit I’m a genre-loving geek [...]

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Tagged as: advice for writers, antagonist, genre, Jami Gold, paranormal author, plot-driven vs. character-driven, subtext, theme

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What Are You Looking for in an Agent?

May 17, 2012 Writing Stuff
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*Shh*  Be very, very quiet.  We’re hunting agents.  (Sorry, with that picture, I couldn’t resist the Bugs Bunny reference. *smile*) Many—if not most—writers want to find an agent at some point in their writing career.  Even in this age of self-publishing, writers still want agents to help them with foreign rights, career advice, access to tricky [...]

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Tagged as: advice for writers, agents, contracts, editing, genre, Jami Gold, paranormal author, self-publishing, social media, traditional publishing

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Tips for Writing Back Cover Copy — Guest: Roz Morris

April 26, 2012 Writing Stuff
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I’m excited to share today’s guest post by author Roz Morris.  After ghostwriting many bestselling books, Roz recently self-published My Memories of a Future Life, her first novel under her own name. Roz’s decision to self-publish came about partly because this novel doesn’t fit into normal genre boxes.  However, even as a self-published author, she still [...]

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Tagged as: advice for writers, feedback, genre, guest blogs, Jami Gold, paranormal author, pitching, queries, Roz Morris, self-publishing, traditional publishing

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What Stories *Won’t* You Write?

April 17, 2012 Writing Stuff
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In my last post, we talked about voice and how we tend to write the same types of characters, premises, and themes over and over.  That’s not a bad thing.  Those stories resonate with us as writers. Similarly, there are stories we would never write.  Stories might be so against our internal grain that if an idea along [...]

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Tagged as: advice for writers, branding, genre, Jami Gold, muse, paranormal author, premise, romance novels, strong characters, theme

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