By Karen H. Richardson It happens to the experienced and the inexperienced among us. It happens when we least expect it or have time for it. We desire to put words on a page to tell a story, share an emotion, or express some great truth. We have a list of topics and an outline. We want each syllable to …
Bringing Characters to Life
By Henry McLaughlin A story without people is not a story. I’m not sure what it is but it’s not a story. You can have a great plot and beautiful settings, but if your characters are not alive, you just have words on a page. There are numerous tools available to help us create characters. Meyer-Briggs, Gary Chapman’s Five Love …
A Seemingly Innocent Question
By Suzanne Kuhn, SuzyQ The holiday season is almost here, and this is a good time to use relevant subjects on your social media. However, please be aware that you may open a can of worms. Don’t be afraid of it; just proceed with caution. I like to ask questions that get my friends and followers thinking and revealing bits …
Not All Characters Are Created Equal
By Winnie Griggs The stories you write undoubtedly have casts of varying numbers, descriptions and personalities. And while every character in your manuscript works together to tell your story, they each perform a different function depending on the roles you assign them. In fiction there are four tiers of characters. These are: • Primary Characters • Secondary Characters • Bit …
Smooth Scene Breaks
by Lynn Hobbs Descriptions of a scene and section break are simple. A section break can be another characters point of view or closure of a particular scene. A scene break within the same scene will show days or hours later in the story; or the character’s advance to a new location. A challenge to include them in a flowing …
The Doldrums: How to Put More Wind in Your Writer’s Sails
By Bonnie Doran What are the Doldrums? Here are the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary definitions: 1. a spell of listlessness or despondency 2. a part of the ocean near the equator abounding in calms, squalls, and light shifting winds 3. a state of period of inactivity, stagnation, or slump Do you ever feel that your writing is in the Doldrums? You …
Journaling Our Journeys
By Shirley Gould In a valiant quest to describe human emotions in our prose, we as writers scan lists of nouns and adjectives in an attempt to make them real to our readers. It is a tedious and time consuming process. Gleaning from my personal journey, emotions experienced in our lives evoke the most vivid descriptions possible…if we journal them …
Reading Outside Your Genre
By Lisa Jordan Recently I had a conversation with my sister, who is a language arts teacher at our local middle school, about the importance of reading outside our favorite genres. She reads a lot of non-fiction, particularly biographies. I read a lot of contemporary romance novels. As a happily ever after girl who writes contemporary Christian romances that promise …
The Art of Fighting and Making Up with Fake People
By Melissa Tagg Several weeks ago I turned in the rewrites on my third book. If I were to describe the process of writing From the Start, um, I might slip into slight melodramatic territory. Or I’d straight up tell you it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever written. Which is the truth, no matter how drama queen-ish it sounds. I …
A New Adventure in Publishing: Strength in Numbers
By Roxanne Rustand Though I continue to enjoy writing traditionally published novels, I spent part of this past year working on some self-published novels for Kindle, Nook, and other e-formats. It has been both an adventure, and a challenge, for it means finding ways to market to readers who enjoy digitial format–and become visible in that ocean of other indie …