Story beginnings are hard. Start too early, and readers are bored. Start too late, and readers feel like they can’t catch up. So what’s the best place to start? For one possible answer, check out my blog post on the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers blog: “Why ‘Fashionably Late’ Is a Great Way to Begin.”
Blog
How Do Your Characters React to the World?
Every individual reacts to any given situation in their own unique way. That is as true for fictional characters as it is for real-live human ones. But sometimes as authors, we make all our characters act the same way we’d act in that situation. What if we instead made our characters observe and respond to […]
Writers: What Can You Do with Rejection? – On the RMFW Blog
There are lots of ways to handle rejection letters, but let’s face it, most of them are unproductive. Over on the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers blog, I’m sharing 10 things to do with rejection that you may find helpful while you’re drowning your sorrows in that family-sized bag of chocolate chip cookies: “10 Things to […]
What Do You Need to Become a Better Writer? – On the RMFW Blog
When was the last time you stepped back and thought about what you need—truly need—to elevate your writing craft or boost the business side of your writing career? I lay out a 5-step plan for identifying your needs, then achieving them, on the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers blog here: “Map Out a Plan to Boost […]
A Day for Fools and Other Speakers of Truth
I don’t love pranks. I’ve never been a fan of April Fools’ Day, even as a little kid. Pranks always seem to me like they’re designed to pointlessly humiliate the other person so that everyone else can laugh at them. Life is hard enough without purposefully making it harder for someone else when they’ve done […]
Tasting Notes for Books
“We should rate books the way we rate wines,” an author friend of mine told me. She’s absolutely right. Books have flavors, after all, and essences. Some make you breathe deeply as you imagine a stroll through a rose garden in chapter 3, while others stink like skunk grass from page 1. Imagine you’re at […]
