by Lindsay Harrel I’m a total musical nerd. I. Love. Musicals. It’s not just the fact that they’re always full of a variety of characters that make me laugh, cry, and everything in between. Or that everything is set to music (though that’s a major plus!). It’s also about the journey characters make – yes, much like in novels. My …
Pinkerton Agents, Inventions, and the Charming Villain: Three Essential Ingredients of a Good Bad Guy
By Kathleen Y’Barbo Will Tucker is a handsome fellow with enough charm and drop-dead good looks to gain more than one wealthy fiancé. And he does. Not exactly hero material, is he? That’s because Will Tucker, the subject of my new Southern-with-a-dash-of-Steampunk historical series The Secret Lives of Will Tucker is not the hero. He’s the villain. Writing a series …
Plotting With God: Turning Story into a Journey of Faith
by Margaret Brownley The challenge for any Christian writer is to tell a good page-turning story that also enlightens and encourages readers. For the writer starting out, working a meaningful faith arc into a manuscript can be daunting (It was for me coming from the secular market). How much or little faith does a book require and what makes a …
Slowing Down the Pace
by Kathi Macias I hear a lot about the need to “slow down the pace” of our writing, and I know that especially applies to me. I am definitely not one of those who spends too much time on descriptions and backgrounds. Anyone who’s read my books knows I like to throw the reader right smack-dab into the action from …
Do You Have to Write What You Know?
by Crystal Laine Miller Beginner writers are often told to “write what you know,” which isn’t bad advice. When you’re learning to write, it will keep you concentrating on the craft and not worrying about the research quite as much. What if you’d like to know some new things to write about? Or what have you always wanted to learn? …
My Learning Curve
by Maggie Brendan As I embark on my seventh book in five years, The Arrangement, book one, in yet another new series, Virtues and Vices of the Old West, I look back on those brief years on what I’ve learned about the crazy world of being an author and thankfully, it’s way more than I can share in this brief …
The Summer Season of Writing
by Telena Tanara Contreras The Arizona summer is an early arriver. In late March a dry breeze descends on the valley to give spring its notice; and a mere month later Queen Summer herself follows behind a procession of scorching rays, ridiculous temperatures, and dramatic dust storms to begin her ruthless reign. Come May, the people are done. Snow birds …
What was the Question?
by Beth K. Vogt “I start with a question. Then try to answer it.” – Mary Lee Settle (1918-2005), author The best way to start a novel is with an Inciting Incident, right? The event that changes the main character’s life – shoves them out of their normal world – and sends them on a journey. But there’s something that …
Keeping the Reader in Mind
by Ruth A. Douthitt I teach writing to middle grade students here in Phoenix, and am amazed at their creativity when it comes to writing stories. As a writing teacher, I use a plotting diagram as well as an outline. I also remind my students to keep me, the reader, in mind as they write. Now I have 70 stories …
When is Fiction Not Fiction
by Charlotte Snead His Brother’s Wife, published in October 2012 by Oak Tara, springs from the heart of one who has walked the halls of Walter Reed and seen our brave warriors. The dry places where they fought are only one battlefield. The daily war for month after month, even year after year, to regain their ability to walk, to …