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7 Resources for History Research — Guest: K.B. Owen

Roman Colosseum with text: 7 Ways to Research History

Many stories require research on settings, characters, careers, or a story premise. The difficulties increase if we need to reference non-contemporary details. Today, historical fiction author Kathy Owen shares her top resources for researching historical details.

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November 15, 2016

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3 Acting Tips to Strengthen Our Voice — Guest: Libby Heily

Actor holding up a mask with text: Acting to Improve Our Voice

When writing, do you ever make the facial expressions of your characters? In that way, most writers are like actors, but other acting skills can help our writing too. Today, Libby Heily shares how we can deepen our characters, strengthen our voice, and sharpen our dialogue with acting skills.

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November 10, 2016

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How Can We Make NaNoWriMo Work for Us?

Close up of custom flames paint job on a car with text: Customize Your NaNo Experience

A common assumption about NaNoWriMo is that people write crap to meet the word count demands of 50K words in one month, but NaNo writing doesn’t have to be poor quality. Let’s take a look at how we can make NaNo work for us.

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October 27, 2016

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Should Published Stories Be Set in Stone?

Letters carved into stone with text: Should Books Be Set in Stone?

In traditional publishing, authors (and their readers) are often stuck with errors, but with ebooks, POD, and self-publishing, files are easy to fix and upload. Should authors make changes, or should books be set in stone?

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October 20, 2016

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Strengthening Stakes: It’s Not about Going Big

High tension electrical wire with large spark: Are Bigger Stakes Better?

A story’s stakes are one element that keeps readers turning pages because they want to see if our characters succeed. At first glance, we might think bigger stakes are better for sucking in readers, but not every story lends themselves to huge stakes. Are “quieter” stories doomed to fail the “page-turner” test?

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September 27, 2016

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