by Dr. Patrick Johnston I have a problem. No sooner do I step out of the bathroom on Sunday morning does my wife take one look at me and pronounce with the authority of the Queen of England, “That doesn’t match!” Though I really don’t see it, most of the time I just blame the curse of Adam and take …
Three Magic Phrases for a Writer
by Richard Mabry Early in my road to writing, author and teacher Alton Gansky taught me to ask a magic question: “What if?” One of his books began when he noted the presence of a military installation in a deserted location and asked himself, “What if that base suddenly disappeared?” The result was an excellent book. And it began with …
Making Research Fun
By Donna Schlachter I’ve seen the way some authors’ eyes nearly roll up into their heads at the word, “research”. After all, that’s just dry, boring stuff. We’re always told to ‘write what we know’. If we have to research a topic, we aren’t writing what we know. I used to write what I knew. My first yet-unpublished novel was …
Writing Effective Book Club Discussion Questions
By Sarah Sundin Book clubs. As readers, we delight in socializing with book-lovers. As writers, we delight in connecting with avid readers. Since I belonged to a book club long before I was published, I knew the importance of a good set of discussion questions. While some groups fall naturally into discussion, some don’t, and good questions stimulate conversation. I …
Breaking the Rules
by Laura McClellan Any novelist who studies craft reads a lot about the rules: Show, don’t tell. Avoid adverbs. No head-hopping. These rules have developed to help us create fiction that welcomes the reader in, with no barriers to the reader’s participation in the story. I recently reread Francine Rivers’s Redeeming Love, one of my favorite novels ever. The characters …
Playing it Safe
Playing it Safe By Katherine Reay Working on my third manuscript seems to be an exercise in conquering fear. Someone told me that my second would be the most difficult, but now that it’s behind me – and it will be to you in October – this third one has me in knots. Now it maybe because the process is …
Tripping Over Legos
By Cynthia Ruchti Novelists hope their proposals, contest submissions, and manuscripts elicit the response “This is no amateur!” and we want much more, of course, like how the piece moved the reader or editor or judge emotionally which is different for different people, and I’ll get to that later, but for now let’s take a look at how novelists can …
Getting in Touch with Your Inner-Psychopath
by C. Kevin Thompson At the Academy of Achievement,1 Sue Grafton spoke to a group of college-age attendees, encouraging right-brainers in the crowd to consider a life in the Arts. As I listened to this presentation, I was struck by how similar writer’s lives are in so many ways. No matter how fledgling or how established, it seems all writers …
Please With a Tease! Using Social Media to Tease Your Readers
by Janice Thompson So, you’ve written the book of your heart. Now you need to get the word out. How do you do so without appearing pushy? Easy! One thing I’ve learned over the course of seventeen years in the publishing business: Readers love to be involved in the process. They enjoy the interaction and the feeling that they’ve somehow …
Trusting Your Gut
by Suzanne Woods Fisher A few years ago, I was staying in a nice hotel-very safe, oriented to business clientele. As I went into an elevator, a hotel employee came in behind me. He waited until I pressed a button for my floor, then he smiled, as if that was just the floor he needed. Something just didn’t seem right. …