Kristen Lamb

Do Stories Need a Theme?

May 26, 2011 Writing Stuff
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Earlier this week, Julie Musil had a great post about how to create story endings that resonate.  I almost wrote an epic comment to her post, but decided to save my wordiness for here.  And I get to use one of my vacation pictures—Disney’s California Adventure theme park, get it?  *snicker* To answer the question [...]

Tagged as: advice for writers, antagonist, emotional heart, Jami Gold, Kristen Lamb, love, paranormal author, plotter vs. pantser, premise, theme

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Make Your Antagonist a Force for Good

May 5, 2011 Writing Stuff
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Wait…what? Well, we want to make our antagonist good for our story anyway.  *smile* Kristen Lamb has been running a fantastic series on antagonists (Part One, Part Two, Villains, Balancing Evil, Inner and Outer Demons).  She shares more gems than I can capture here, so definitely check out her posts. For what I want to talk [...]

Tagged as: advice for writers, antagonist, character archetypes, Jami Gold, Kristen Lamb, muse, paranormal author, plotter vs. pantser, tension, theme

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What Creates Good Writing: Instinct vs. Skill

February 24, 2011 Writing Stuff
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I’m still in the deadline cave and self-banned from Twitter, but I wanted to post about something I’ve realized through this revision process. It’s probably safe to say we all want to get better at our jobs, whether that’s writing or something else.  But how much of what we do is instinct and how much [...]

Tagged as: advice for writers, beta reader, critique partners/groups, deadlines, editing, feedback, Jami Gold, Kristen Lamb, paranormal author

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The Truth about Writing Contests

February 17, 2011 Writing Stuff
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Opinionated statement alert: Every writer should volunteer to judge a writing contest.   And not simply for altruistic reasons.  No, we should do it because we can learn from reading others’ work, as it’s much easier to see mistakes in prose other than our own. My friend Anassa Rhenisch had a great blog post about this [...]

Tagged as: advice for writers, agents, feedback, Jami Gold, Kristen Lamb, paranormal author, RWA, writing contests

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Can Blogging Train Your Muse?

December 9, 2010 Writing Stuff
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Should authors blog?  We’ve all seen this question in some form or another.  Some wonder if agents expect it.  (Not yet but close.) Others want to know if it will help build that elusive platform.  (It can.) But I propose another reason to blog: training your muse. My regular readers are well aware that I [...]

Tagged as: blogging, Chuck Wendig, deadlines, Jami is insane, Jami's rants, Kristen Lamb, professionalism

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How to be a Twitter Ninja

December 2, 2010 Random Musings
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To prevent being overwhelmed by Twitter, one suggestion you’ll hear over and over is to use a program like TweetDeck to manage all those tweets by creating lists.  But did you know you can also use lists to become a Twitter Ninja? It’s true.  But before we get into the details, let’s review lists and [...]

Tagged as: agents, authors, Kristen Lamb, organized, professionalism, social media, Twitter

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How to Make Online Friends

November 18, 2010 Random Musings
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In my last post, I talked about the awesome and supportive writing community.  Based on the comments, a lot of people agree.  It’s great to have friends when you’re feeling up, down, or all alone.  But what if you’re not sure how to join that community? Thanks to Laurie London, I found this: 9 Characteristics [...]

Tagged as: authors, blogging, branding, Kristen Lamb, professionalism, social media, Twitter

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How to Create a Strong Character: Contrast Their Self-Image

October 28, 2010 Writing Stuff
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We’re going to continue talking about how to implement the list to make sure we’re creating strong characters.  Last time, we made sure that our characters had goals.  Next up… Are They Three-Dimensional? There are plenty of ideas out there about how to make your characters seem real, but I’m going to get my geek [...]

Tagged as: advice for writers, character flaws, Kristen Lamb, listening to characters, muse, strong characters

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Tweet Week: Twitter—A Writer’s New BFF

September 28, 2010 Writing Stuff
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If you’ve seen some of my previous posts (Are Writers Conferences Worth It and Finding Life’s Balance), then you know I’m a big fan of Twitter. I’m not alone. Today, I invited Kristen Lamb, social media expert, to guest blog about how Twitter can help writers.  Take it away, Kristen… Twitter—A Writer’s New BFF Jami [...]

Tagged as: advice for writers, agents, authors, branding, guest blogs, Kristen Lamb, social media, Tweet Week, Twitter

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Multiple Personality Disorder? No, I’m a Writer.

July 20, 2010 Writing Stuff
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(No disrespect to anyone—crazy, insane, loony, committed, batty, bizarre, eccentric, daft, demented, deranged, or otherwise—is intended by this post.) When is a crazy person not a crazy person?  When they’re a writer. Writers can have hundreds of imaginary friends.  No, I’m not crazy, I’m just talking to my characters. Writers can allow their characters to [...]

Tagged as: Jami is insane, Kristen Lamb, listening to characters, writers are insane

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