Writing about writing. Mostly.
by Ruth Harris How often should you water a cactus? What is the name of the president who came before Abraham Lincoln? How do you blow up a bridge? What’s so special about the Sydney opera house? What does SPECTRE stand for? In the course of writing a novel, a writer — one who will […]
The adversity cycle vs. the Hero’s Journey by Stefan Edmunds A Fresh Definition of Story I imagine that in the earliest days of storytelling, people took real-life adventures, like raiding a village, surviving a storm, or abducting a woman of another clan, and told the tale at the campfire. Over time, storytellers gilded real-life adventures […]
Blogging is a great way to build platform by Anne R. Allen I started this blog on March 13th, 2009. It was Friday the 13th. Obviously I have a need to tempt fate. I knew pretty much nothing about blogging. I simply wanted a place to put the unpublished columns I had written for Inkwell […]
The Sensitive Plant (Mimosa Pudica) by Anne R. Allen A friend recently hired several sensitivity readers to review his YA novel, which features characters of diverse ethnicities. He’s about to get on the query-go-round and wants to make sure the book won’t be found insensitive to those minorities. This is becoming increasingly important to the […]
by Ruth Harris Here are Some Pro Tips And Tricks To Absolutely, Positively Raise Your Anemic R-Score. Are you embarrassed by your pathetic R-quotient? Do other writers sneer at your R-score? Has your pile of rejection letters stalled out? Have your R-levels been diagnosed as too low? Has too much time gone by since your […]
by Anne R. Allen Publishing Scammers get more brazen all the time, and there seem to be more of them every day. Sometimes I wonder if all those people who have mysteriously quit their jobs aren’t now working as con artists and phone scammers. Just recently, the respected site Wattpad ran a contest that involved […]
By Kathy Steinemann Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day! Do you want to spice up the card you bought for your sweetheart? Maybe you’re writing a romance, and you need a few alternatives for love. People might say they love doughnuts, kittens, or coffee, but maybe they savor doughnuts, fawn over kittens, and crave coffee. Or perhaps […]
Dangerous Critiques can Turn Your WIP into a Jackalope by Anne R. Allen One of the most damaging things a new writer can do is try to please everybody who beta-reads or critiques their WIP. I’ve seen a novel turned into a kind of jackalope of unrelated parts. If you tend to be a “people […]
by Ruth Harris The nip slip and wardrobe malfunction make good fodder for the gossip sites, but, for writers, wardrobes — clothes and accessories — are a powerful tool in the arsenal. 1. Clothes and accessories show, not tell. Clothing and accessories instantly convey status, setting and mood. They have their own language and vocabulary and […]
Writer’s block has hit a lot of us during the pandemic By William L. Hahn Other than a single flash piece before Christmas, I haven’t written a solitary word on my epic fantasy world in more than a year. And holy crow, do I need to. Not only do I have a complete, well-envisioned novel […]
by Anne R. Allen When a writer complains that everybody in traditional publishing is crooked, or that the whole industry is rigged against new writers, you can usually be sure the author’s manuscript needs work. But it could also be that he doesn’t know how to write a query. I know some excellent writers who […]
by Anne R. Allen I’ve blogged before with tips on choosing a book title, but recently I’ve become aware of a few other things we need to consider in the age of online bookselling. I ruminated about titles over the holidays, when I had a chance to read some titles from my TBR pile, and […]
By Laurie McLean of Fuse Literary Who could have predicted the bright ray of light that shined on publishing during this pandemic! But it did shine, and will continue to shine, as people rekindle their love of reading and writing! Publishing is more profitable than ever before in its history…for the second year in a […]
Anne R Allen’s Blog With Ruth Harris