By MaryLu Tyndall In any great action scene your reader should be feeling and experiencing the same stress, fear, and excitement your protagonist is feeling. You want your readers on the edge of their proverbial seats! You want them screaming, “Oh no! What’s going to happen? How will they survive? Help!” So, how do you create that kind of tension …
Writing to Music
by Lisa Jordan “Music speaks what cannot be expressed, soothes the mind and gives it rest, heals the heart and makes it whole, flows from heaven to the soul.” ~Author Unknown My two sons have musical abilities they didn’t inherit from their parents. My oldest son sang in an a cappella and an elite choir in high school and college …
7 Reasons to NOT be a Writing Diva
by Carrie Fancett Pagels With the ACFW conference right around the corner, many may be tempted to pull their diva mantle out and pack it! Don’t! With narcissism so rampant in our culture that DSM revisions had to more narrowly define its features, one might wonder if I am spitting in the wind to even comment on this phenomenon. Even …
Characters Make the Novel
by B. J. Robinson Want to write a heart-touching novel? Let your characters drive the story. Develop well-rounded ones so readers will be able to identify and connect. Begin with your main character. In my novels Last Resort, Southern Superstitions, and Whispering Cypress, I started each one with a main character. In my August 11 release, Whispering Cypress, I created …
The Bathroom Scale
by Suzanne Woods Fisher On a sunny summer morning, my husband walked into the kitchen. “I fixed the bathroom scale,” he said, looking pleased. “You weigh five pounds more than you thought you did.” Steve thought that was good news. He’s an accountant. Numbers are important. Not those numbers, I tried to explain, barely able to hold back my indignation. …
What Do I Know?
by Eileen Key I’ve often heard “write what you know” and have done just that in many devotionals and articles which laid out events in my life-including the time my daughter was in FFA and I sheared sheep! That story made it into a rancher’s magazine. Then I tried my hand at fiction. Hmm. What did I know? Oh my. …
Make a Plan and Write it Down!
by Lacie Nezbeth At a recent, local writer’s conference, the attendees (myself included) were taught by New York Times bestselling author Susy Flory, and one of the most popular literary agents known to man, Chip MacGregor. Some of the topics they covered during the two day conference were: creating killer book proposals and queries, harnessing our fear of writing to …
Seriously, An Audience of One?
By D.M. Webb What is the one thing that a lot of writers, editors, and publishers are saying about writing in today’s market and life? Write for an audience of One. Wow. Seriously? How in the world am I to make money if I write for just an audience of one? I need hundreds-no, thousands- of people to make a …
Finding Inspiration in the Oddest Places
by Connie Stevens Writers are asked all the time, “Where do you get your ideas?” The answers vary based on the genre. Some might hear a news report about an unsolved murder or a case of corruption. Others might gaze at the stars and dream of futuristic possibilities. Still other authors may find a fascinating tidbit of trivia and allow …
Fiction and Reality
by Deborah Rather I write contemporary Christian romance. As soon as people find out that I have written numerous novels (nearly 80 now), they almost always ask the same question. “Where do you get your ideas?” This bewilders me. I always want to come back with something pithy like, “Don’t you pay attention to what goes on around you?” Most …