How to Make a Forbidden Romance Work
Today’s “Ask Jami” came from a comment on my Romance Beat Sheet post. Nick wanted to know how a story’s structure would change if the romance is forbidden. Ooo…
Pin ItWhere Normal Need Not Apply
Today’s “Ask Jami” came from a comment on my Romance Beat Sheet post. Nick wanted to know how a story’s structure would change if the romance is forbidden. Ooo…
Pin ItMany books recently on the bestseller lists have been part of series. From the Divergent series to the new cliffhanger and serial books, series are a popular trend. But what if we don’t naturally write series? Will we be left behind? The “lessons learned” section in my post about Beverly Kendall’s self-publishing report reiterated the […]
Pin ItMany writers will search in MS Word for red flag words that indicate telling. But there are a lot of those words, and that would be a lot of searches. That’s where macros can help, and today we’ll learn how to build our own trouble-searching macros with a few secret weapons.
Pin ItWe want to clean up our story the best we can because copy editors often charge a “messy manuscript” premium. Yet it can be difficult to self-edit at this “polish” stage. For one thing, this step can be tedious to the extreme. Even with MS Word’s “find and replace” functionality, there are many words to check, and it’s hard to remember them all.
Pin ItNeed a beta reader? Check this mega-list of resources. For beta readers, we’re not necessarily looking for writing craft experts but for people we connect with, people who will follow through on promises, and people who can read with awareness and push us and our story to be better.
Pin ItTaglines are like the phrases on a movie poster: short, intriguing, punchy, attention-getting. In addition to taglines for our writing, we might also want one about us and our author brand.
Pin ItDo you use the Scrivener program for your writing? Many writers do, especially as Scrivener sponsors NaNoWriMo and offers a discount to participants. I started using Scrivener for my NaNo drafting last year and was able to buy the program at half-off because of my NaNo win. Woo hoo! Many writers like Scrivener (Windows and Mac) for […]
Pin ItA couple of weeks ago, Becca Puglisi, one of the co-authors of the fantastic Thesaurus books, shared her tips for using the new The Positive Trait Thesaurus and The Negative Trait Thesaurus books. Her advice can help us develop our characters at all stages of planning, drafting, and editing. But the comments of that post pointed […]
Pin ItDid everyone survive the big shopping days of Black Friday and/or Cyber Monday? Me? I’m a lazy bum and did most of my shopping online. No crowds for me. Obviously, I’m not a shopaholic, so I usually need help knowing what gifts to buy for people. That means it’s time to start thinking about what we […]
Pin ItNot familiar with beat sheets or spreadsheet programs? Learn what the different columns and rows mean and how we can update the details for our unique story.
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