I’ve offered several posts here about balancing various elements of our story, but there’s still room for debate because we have to find the right balance for our voice, genre, tone, and style—for our story. That means there is no perfect amount of backstory or description or emotion.
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While I’m still slowly recovering from my latest surgery, Jenny Hansen is here to fill in for me. Most of us suffer from self-doubt, and today Jenny’s sharing her insights about hanging on to our writing dream through all the doubts and fears.
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The stereotype of a writer pounding away in isolation ignores how the online writing community gives us more options. We can work in secrecy or involve others by sharing our work in progress. There’s no right or wrong answer, but we should figure out which approach works better for us.
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Over the years, a sharp division has split the writing community into two camps: traditional publishing and self-publishing. However, the current us-vs.-them attitude doesn’t seem nearly as bad as it used to be. When writers research their options for which path they should take, what advice do they encounter now?
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How would you complete this sentence? “I’ll know that I’m good enough when…” Dr. Valerie Young, an expert on “impostor syndrome,” shares her insights.
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While we need to learn grammar rules for our writing, if we follow the rules too strictly, we can strangle our voice. Today, Julie Glover shares her tips on four steps to break grammar rules in a good way.
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A recent article about unlikable heroines pointed out that likability is often more of a problem for female characters than for male characters. While I’ve learned how to minimize those issues with my characters, the problem still rankles me.
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As a modern writer, we’re expected to do so much that we struggle to find time to write—even if we’re traditionally published. No one will ever care about our career as much as we do, so that means we should pay attention to many aspects of entrepreneurship.
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The learning curve we face when deciding to become a writer is always longer than we think because we don’t know what all we don’t know. So how can we track our progress? How can we tell whether we’re improving? How can we feel good about our writing?
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With another final under Treasured Claim’s belt, my debut has now finaled five times in three contests for published books. So today seems like a good time to touch upon the contest arena for published books.
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