Anne R. Allen's Blog... with Ruth Harris
Writing about writing. Mostly.
Do you repeat redundancies over and over? Find out now! by Kathy Steinemann Hello there. How are you today? Are you ready to test out your redundancy eye? You might ask, “Why should I care about redundancies?” Before we begin, I’ll answer that question. Redundancies are superfluous words or phrases also known as pleonasms: the […]
by Ruth Harris The style sheet is a writer’s secret power — and best friend. A style sheet will save you time, frustration, and money. A style sheet will save you from yourself and prevent you from making the kind of mistakes that will send readers fleeing and guarantee one-star reviews. If you’re writing a […]
By Melodie Campbell Many of you know that in addition to being a writer of mob heist novels, I’m also the past Executive Director of Crime Writers of Canada. (For my sins. Of which I’ve lost count…) I’m just coming up for air after serving as a judge for the Crime Writers of Canada Awards […]
by Anne R. Allen One of the things that will get you an automatic rejection from most agents—and a swift toss to the DNF pile from a lot of readers—is an unsympathetic character. Especially an unsympathetic protagonist. Personally, I have to admit if there’s nobody in a story I care about, I’m out of there […]
by Anne R. Allen The old-school advice for naming fictional characters was to comb the obituaries. But not a lot of people get newspapers these days, so we need other sources of inspiration. For me, spam is turning out to be one of the best places to find unique names. Every week I cull a […]
Writing fashion changes, like the fashion in Easter Bonnets by Anne R. Allen Fashion. It sounds frivolous, but it has serious effects on us all. Right now, women are getting beard-burn from kissing men who sport the fashionable romantic-hero three-day stubble. And mothers are stifling their disappointment when their golden-haired boys get the fashion-victim shaved-sides […]
by Ruth Harris Your title is just right for your genre. Your cover is on-target, too. Perfect image, just-so font, come-hither colors. This is a cover that will end up in the book cover wing of the Louvre. You know, that premium spot right next to the Mona Lisa. Your blurb is totally irresistible. I […]
by Anne R. Allen This week I saw links to a couple of threads on social media about reader pet peeves. Then Buzzfeed weighed in, listing some of the biggest complaints from fiction readers. Some peeves are predictable but others are kind of surprising. I do some of this stuff myself, so I was grateful […]
Storytelling isn’t as easy as it seems by Anne R. Allen Making mistakes is how we learn. Some beginning writer mistakes are so common they’re almost a rite of passage. Here are five I see all the time. I think I did every one when I was starting out. Taking “Show Don’t Tell” to Extremes […]
A romantic hero is great on Valentine’s Day, but will ever-aftering be happy? by Tara Sparling Introduction: We love our romantic heroes, both on the page and onscreen. But what would it be like to truly live with one in real life… during a pandemic? It’s Valentine’s Day. And for the first time in forever, […]
Are you ready to publish? by Anne R. Allen If you’ve used the pandemic lockdown as a time to write that novel you always knew you had in you, congratulations! You’ve taken the depressing, horrific lemon that was 2020 and turned it into literary lemonade. You deserve a great big “Congrats!” and several pats on […]
An amateur self-published book gives professional indies a bad name by Anne R. Allen When you’re confined to a hospital bed for several months the way I was last summer, you read a lot of books. During my 2+ months of medical incarceration, I read pretty much everything loaded onto my trusty old Kindle (over […]
by Kathy Steinemann ’Tis the season to be thankful. November and December bring with them many opportunities to express gratitude: Veterans Day, World Kindness Day, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, and more. Ziad K. Abdelnour said, “Learn to appreciate what you have, before time makes you appreciate what you had.” Let’s consider a few things we can […]
Anne R Allen’s Blog With Ruth Harris