By Beth K. Vogt I’ve come across different writers prayers throughout the years. I’ve even collected a few of them from various conferences, tacking them up near my desk so I can stop and pray through them as I fast draft or edit manuscripts. The writing life has certainly strengthened my prayer life as I’ve offered up innumerable prayers both …
Adding Flesh to the Bone: Writing Compelling Historical/Biblical Fiction
By Mesu Andrews If you’re invited to my house for a quiet evening, you should hope I only serve dessert. I’m not a terrible cook, but my main dishes usually come from a box. Why? Because the only seasonings I know how to use are salt and pepper, which makes most of my food-from-scratch taste…well, bland. When our daughter and …
Fritter Not Away the Hour
By W G Reese Sitting at the computer in the far right corner of my basement, my eyes fix on that annoying sentence that rambles no matter what I do. I blow a puff of air in frustration which loosens a small ball of dust in the screen’s upper right side. Hmm… Dust. My finger lifts and wipes it free. …
The Marvelous Middles
By Lauren H. Brandenburg We are the writers for the Marvelous Middles. At writers’ conferences, we don’t quite fit in with the crowd. True, we have characters that we love, worlds that we have delicately designed, and plots that will entertain and excite like everyone else, but we are different. Sessions on social media marketing don’t apply, as most of …
Relatable Characters
By Ane Mulligan Is your character one you either like or at least relate to? Nobody truly likes Scarlet O’Hara, but nearly everyone relates to her on some level. The protagonist needs to have relatable or endearing flaws and quirks. Does the characterization remain constant? After the peak of the character arc, the character may become sensitive to their main …
Mirror, Mirror: Using A Character’s Surroundings to Show & Not Tell
By Hannah Conway Show, don’t tell. I’m sure we’ve all heard that before. Some of us may have even rolled our eyes a time or two upon hearing those words from a critique partner, or editor. I may, or may not, have rolled my eyes…no judging. Show. Don’t tell. Um, hello, it’s a novel. We HAVE to tell some things. …
Unlocking the Doors
By Donna Schlachter Do you sometimes feel, in trying to get your book published, that you’re rattling at one locked door after another? Perhaps you’re struggling to find an agent, or maybe you’ve been submitting directly to publishers and gotten nothing except rejections. Or worse, silence. It’s okay. We’ve all been there. Some of us are still there. And we …
Writing Through Grief
By Darlene L. Turner “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help” (Psalm 121:1 KJV). I stare out the living room window, my vision blurring and tears forming. I shuffle into the kitchen and peer out the back window. Perhaps the view from there would be different and change my situation. It didn’t. My …
10 Things That Steal Our Writing Joy
By Edie Melson I’m a member of several writing groups, and I’m always amazed at the different reactions people have to similar situations. For instance, one writer might leave a critique session in tears, questioning whether or not the call to write was real. Another writer might have just as challenging a critique and leave energized because she now has …
When Writing Calls Your Name
By Ruth Douthitt Recently, I had the privilege of hearing agent and writer, Karen Ball, speak at a small writers conference in Phoenix. I didn’t really want to attend the conference. I haven’t written much these last few months and had no desire to write anything in the near future, but I felt the Lord leading me to attend…so I …