Writing about writing. Mostly.
by Ruth Harris What Ray Bradbury called the muse, Stephen King calls the “guys in the basement.” Others call it the sixth sense, the Spidey sense, or intuition. Whatever you call it, your subconscious — the thoughts you don’t know you’re thinking — is what makes the magic happen. These unknown thoughts occur below the […]
By Yvonne Osborne Note from Anne: Yvonne is a long-time reader of this blog. When her writing dreams came true and a traditional publisher was about to release her first book, I asked her to write about the process. THE OFFER I’m writing this guest post from behind two boxes of books just delivered […]
by Anne R. Allen It’s been said that if writing advice were classic rock, “Show Don’t Tell” would be “Stairway to Heaven.” But is it always good advice? Of course nobody wants to read a novel that tells a series of incidents. That can sound like a four-year-old recapping his day. “I had Froot […]
by Jodie Hurst Whether it’s making new music or creating social media personalities, AI has dabbled into everything around us, including writing. This brings us to the one major question – Will human writers become obsolete? While artificial intelligence programs can certainly assist writers with ideas and inspiration, some can completely replace writers in […]
By Anne R. Allen Recently an article in The Cut by finance writer Charlotte Cowles shocked her readers with the story of how she was robbed by a gang of con artists. She admitted she ended up giving these crooks $50,000 in cash in a shoe box. Like many other readers, I wondered how […]
Writer’s Block happens to a lot of us. by Ruth Harris You hate your book. You hate your characters. The plot sucks. You have no talent and don’t know what you’re doing or why you’re doing it. On REALLY bad days, you even hate your computer which just sits there like a bilious toad and […]
by Anne R. Allen In a comment on my post “A Little Less Conversation. A Little More Action Please,” Audrey Driscoll pointed out that novels that throw in a whole lot of combat and running from danger can be boring, too. She was absolutely right. In my response to her comment, I tried to […]
by Kenneth Strange, Jr. As a former FBI agent and true crime author, I seem to be more in demand for speaking engagements than ever before. However, to set the record straight, I will often begin a talk debunking FBI myths including the notion that we FBI agents have experience working in the realm […]
Dialogue is fun in fiction, but too much can be exhausting by Anne R. Allen Yes, I’m quoting an Elvis song (actually by his songwriters Mac Davis and Billy Strange) in a writing article. But the title is a good thing to keep in mind when you’re writing fiction. I recently paid money for a […]
by Ruth Harris Into (almost) every book about grown-ups some sex must fall. How or even whether the details are described is up to the author, but for now let’s get beyond the nitty-gritty details of who-does-what-to-whom and what-goes-where. Instead, let’s consider some likely circumstances, consequences and complications offered by literary sex. 1) Or, […]
by Anne R. Allen In a workshop I attended recently, several people criticized an author’s work because they didn’t approve of the way the protagonist behaved. They thought the character was morally deficient. First, this wasn’t good critiquing. It’s not the critiquer’s job to make moral judgements about another author’s characters. A novel full […]
by Anne R. Allen Talk about self-publishing has diminished in the last few years. Most of the “Kindle Millionaires” that surged onto the scene a decade or so ago have evaporated from indie writing communities. Some of them are, of course, busy writing their next bestseller. But a lot either got traditional publishing contracts, […]
By Laurie McLean, Fuse Literary Publishing woke up from the pandemic years of big backlist profits and came out of the gate swinging in 2023. Publishing houses did not buy as many books as in 2022. (Anecdotally, I sold 24 books in 2022 and had a million-dollar sales month, but I only sold 4 […]
