Where Normal Need Not Apply
Tomorrow, thousands of writers will start their novel for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I’m not in a good spot in my writing project schedule to participate this year (*pout*), but I’m cheering from the sidelines. (I’m Jami Gold if anyone wants to buddy me.) On this occasion, I wanted to bring together several tips […]
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The Writers Helping Writers Amazing Race is still going strong, where an army of writers are trying to help as many other writers as we can in one week. One category where people can request help is an “Ask Anything” question. Ask anything related to writing and there’s bound to be someone among the Amazing […]
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Those of you who follow me on Twitter know that I’m always on the lookout for great writing resources. Over three years ago, I discovered one of the best: The Bookshelf Muse, written by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. They’re also the genius duo behind The Emotion Thesaurus. If you’re not familiar with The Bookshelf Muse […]
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We’ve probably all heard the advice to “show don’t tell” more times than we can count. Like most advice, it’s worded as an absolute, making it seem as though telling is never okay.
Once we’re experienced, we know that’s not true. Some telling is absolutely okay, and in certain cases, is preferable to showing.
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I’ve gushed many times about the awesomeness of Janice Hardy’s blog—for good reason. Her writing tips are clear and insightful. She discusses topics more thoroughly than most. And it’s a rare thing when I can’t find an answer to a writing question there. She’s also a super-fantastic person (I’ve met her in real-life, so I […]
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A lot goes into deciding how to begin our story. We have to introduce the characters, the story, and the setting. We have to make it interesting, not confusing, or not accidentally misleading. Etc., etc., etc. If we think about it too much, we might seize up and not write anything. The sight of that […]
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Several months ago, I saw a fascinating Storify by Carina Press editor Angela James. I meant to do a post about the issue she brought up, but I often have more blog post ideas than time. With my recent articles about subtext, genre stories, formulaic writing, and my guest post at Paranormal Unbound about tropes […]
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Yesterday, Kristen Lamb ran an encore of one of my posts from last year on her blog. We both liked that post because it discusses the importance of leaving the reader room to use their imagination. In the post, I made an aside about the danger of including a teaser excerpt for the next book in […]
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Surprisingly, many authors haven’t bothered worrying about book pirates. They figured a few copies going to readers who never would have paid for them anyway didn’t matter. Heck, some authors even thought book pirates could be good for their career. Spread the word, appeal to more readers who might buy their book next time, yadda yadda. Um, […]
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Feedback can be essential for helping our writing improve. But being confronted with our writing’s weaknesses is hard, so here are ways to tackle criticism.
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