What’s the difference between alpha readers, critique groups, beta readers, sensitivity readers, developmental editors, and all the other reader/editor types out there? And what are we writers supposed to do with them all? Each one has a role to play in making your story the best it can be, whether you’re polishing your manuscript to […]
Writing Craft
Are Your Settings Fading into the Background? – On the RMFW Blog
In your stories, settings can and should be doing more for you than just establishing time and location. Settings can help enhance your characters, set the atmosphere and tone of a scene or entire book, and ratchet up the tension and conflict. I show how on the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers blog this month, in […]
Time to Revisit Your Writing Habits? – On the RMFW Blog
January is a traditional time to think about the writing habits that make us successful, the ones that could use some tweaking, some we need to abandon, and new ones we need to embrace. I talk more about this on the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers blog, so click here to read more: “Change Up Your […]
Fire Up Your Writing Energy – Bar Scene
Writing can go through seasons—some seasons are hot and fast, filled with fireworks, while others are cold and sluggish, like a Sunday morning in December. After one of those cold, unproductive seasons, getting back to our computers to do some fiction writing can feel like a sun-kissed reward for having survived all those lost gloves […]
Writing Body Language – Are Your Characters Fluent in Body Language?
In the improv comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway?, the comedians often perform a particular sketch, called “Moving People,” where they pull two audience members on stage. Two of the comedians act out a scene while the two audience members frantically try to pose them to match the dialogue. The comedians are as helpful […]
So Many Words, So Little Time
We’re a wordy bunch, we English speakers. According to the Oxford Dictionaries’ Lexico website (“How Many Words Are There in the English Language?”), “The Second Edition of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary, published in 1989, contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use, and 47,156 obsolete words. To this may be added around 9,500 derivative […]
