A Magical Words Post on Point of View
Today’s post, the latest in the unofficial Spell Blind Winter 2014-15 Blog Tour, can be found at the Magical Words blog site. The post discusses point of view, and for those who know me this comes as...
View ArticleVisiting with Stephen Leigh!
Today I am blogging at the site of Stephen Leigh, who is a terrific fantasy writer and one of the nicest people I have met in my nearly 20 years in this business. Stephen invited me to his site to help...
View ArticleA New Interview is Up!
My friend Joshua Palmatier (aka Benjamin Tate) has interviewed me about the release of Spell Blind, the first book in the Case Files of Justis Fearsson. We talk about pseudonyms, urban fantasy, and...
View ArticleWriting About Character at Magical Words
Today, I am back at Magical Words with a post about character and character relationships in Spell Blind, the first book in The Case Files of Justis Fearsson. The post is part of my continuing...
View ArticleA Very Special Interview
Today on the unofficial Winter 2014-15 Spell Blind Blog Tour I have a very special post up at the website of Lucienne Diver, writer, agent, friend. The post is an interview with Namid’skemu, a...
View ArticleA Better Day
First off, my deepest thanks to all who left comments of support and encouragement and advice in response to yesterday’s post. Your words helped. Your good wishes helped. I knew already that I was not...
View ArticlePOV and Q&A, Today on the Blog Tour!
As writers we should be deliberate in choosing the proper voice for each story. We shouldn’t choose third person simply because the market might prefer it, as once it did, nor should we automatically...
View ArticleToday on the Blog Tour: Nemesis and Protagonist
One of the things that the first book did not do — because it wasn’t necessary to the plot — was to set up a nemesis for Jay Fearsson who would outlast the narrative of this particular novel. I mean...
View ArticleQuick-Tip Tuesday: Giving Secrets to Your Characters
Giving secrets to our characters sets up plot points for our stories. But secrets do more than that. They add dimension and richness to our characters. Those secrets become the source of our...
View ArticleQuick-Tip Tuesday Is Back, with Ro Laren!
But simply adding a character isn’t always enough. Sure, a love interest can spice things up, or a new villain can ratchet up the tension. But sometimes what a story needs is both more subtle than...
View ArticleQuick-Tip Tuesday: Emotion and Narrative
So how do we imbue our prose with emotion? Well, we DON’T do it with a sledge hammer. I am not telling you to bludgeon your readers with paragraphs-long explorations of your characters’ emotions. That...
View ArticleStruggle
Writing is fits and starts. It is slog and glide. It is by turns frustrating and exhilarating and frustrating yet again. This is hard. Anyone who tells you otherwise is doing you a disservice. Earlier...
View ArticleWriting Tip Wednesday: The Nature of Conflict
When I was in grade school (yes, grade school) we were taught about the rudiments of writing – not just grammar, mind you, but also the fundamentals of storytelling. We weren’t necessarily taught these...
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Writing Tip Wednesday: Guest Author Tina LeCount Myers on Writing a Series
Today I welcome to the blog my dear friend, Tina LeCount Myers. Tina and I met at a World Fantasy Convention a few years back and immediately fell into an easy friendship. I have since read her work...
View ArticleWriting-Tip Wednesday: Dialogue, Part I
I love writing dialogue, in part because I love reading dialogue. I believe that people are natural eavesdroppers. We like to listen in on other people’s conversations. That’s what reading dialogue is...
View ArticleWriting-Tip Wednesday: Dialogue, part II — Attribution
Last week’s Writing-Tip Wednesday post began a two part series on dialogue with some advice on the writing of the actual “spoken” words we put in the mouths of our characters. Today, I follow that up...
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Writing-Tip Wednesday: Single Point of View v. Multiple Point of View
If you know me, if you have been with me in panel discussions at conventions, if you have ever received any sort of writing advice from me, or even heard me give such advice to others, I need for you...
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Writing-Tip Wednesday: The ABCs of Character
Last week, I wrote about befriending our characters, as a way of using empathy to improve our character development. This week I would like to continue the discussion of character work by taking a...
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Writing-Tip Wednesday: Short Fiction Anthologies — When Does an Idea Become a...
What is the difference between an idea and a story? It sounds like a basic question, but we have just begun the Zombies Need Brains Kickstarter for the coming year’s anthologies, and once again I am...
View ArticleWriting-Tip Wednesday: How To Handle Profanity In Your Writing
Have you watched the HBO series Deadwood? It’s a Western, the creative child of the brilliant David Milch. It’s violent, brutally realistic, and absolutely the most profane thing I have ever watched,...
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