Writing about writing. Mostly.
A visit from your muse: the gift you give yourself. by Ruth Harris “What The Subconscious is to every other man, in its creative aspect becomes, for writers, The Muse.” ~ Ray Bradbury What Ray Bradbury called the muse, Stephen King called the “guys in the basement.” Others call it the sixth sense, the Spidey […]
Follow word count guidelines to keep from snoozifying your reader. by Anne R. Allen A constant complaint I hear from agents, editors, writing teachers, and reviewers is that they see too many manuscripts with inappropriate word counts. If you’re getting a lot of form rejections or simply silence from agents, reviewers and editors, this may […]
It turns out authors make lots of website mistakes. by Gill Andrews You didn’t sign up for this. Writing and sharing your ideas with others – sure. But this website thing? You just wanted more people to read your stories. But now you spend hours agonizing over blog post topics, looking for free images, and […]
Peggy Cass as “Agnes Gooch,” a memorable character name by Anne R. Allen “Agnes Gooch,” “Mr. McCawber,” “Albus Dumbledore”: memorable names of memorable characters. How can writers come up with character names that readers will never forget? In his painfully funny 2006 book, Famous Writing School, a Novel, Stephen Carter’s writing teacher-protagonist advises his students to […]
Beware plot and pot holes in your fiction! by Ruth Harris We all come face to face with them, those pesky glitches, oopsies, OMGs and WTFs that ruin a story, turn a reader off, guarantee a slew of one-star reviews—and kill sales. Beta readers will often point them out. Editors are professional fixers, always on […]
An Author Blog is still one of the best ways to build platform By Anne R. Allen If you tell your non-writing friends you’re thinking of starting an author blog, you’ll probably hear some noise about how blogging is “totally over.” People have been pronouncing the demise of blogging for a decade. Google “blogging is […]
A creative writing teacher has to deal with a lot. By Melodie Campbell It all started in 1992. I’d won a couple of crime fiction awards, and the local college came calling. Did I want to come on faculty and teach in the writing program? Hell, yes! (Pass the scotch.) Over the years, I continued […]
…and How to Solve 9 Common Dialogue Problems. by Anne R. Allen I’ve been looking over some of my much-rejected early work and discovered my old stories have way too much dialogue. This is something I see in a lot of newbie fiction. I remember a guy who came into the bookstore where I […]
Secrets are the engine that keep a story moving forward. by Ruth Harris Shhh! Secrets. Everyone has them. Every book must have at least one because secrets are the jet-powered engine that propels fiction forward. Ever notice how many blurbs in the daily BookBub email include the word secret? Secrets provide motivation, plot, character, even a setting (a […]
Agent Laurie McLean gives her publishing predictions for 2018. By Laurie McLean, Partner, Fuse Literary My crystal ball is telling me that not a lot in the publishing industry is going to change from 2017 to 2018. I think publishing was mesmerized by Washington politics in 2017 and were slow to make any forward progress […]
Don’t kill book sales dead with a less than enticing “look inside” sample. by Anne R. Allen I never have as much time to read as I think I will, and my trusty old Kindle is pretty loaded up. So I’m a picky book-buyer. Unfortunately, there are a lot of readers like me out here, […]
Even if you have the writing talent of Lord Byron, you need these things. by Anne R. Allen I understand why new writers want to be reassured they have writing talent. They don’t want to embark on the long road to a writing career if they don’t have the chops. So I have sympathy with […]
Ruth and Anne wish you all a very happy and prosperous 2018. As Anne wrote earlier this month, you run into a lot of bogus information about writing in the Internet age. Other advice you run into can be helpful…but be wary of taking it all as gospel. Remember that rigid rules usually lead to […]
Anne R Allen’s Blog With Ruth Harris