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March 6, 2022 By Anne R. Allen 70 Comments

Writers, Do You Need a Sensitivity Reader for Your Book?

Writers, Do You Need a Sensitivity Reader for Your Book?

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 […]

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Filed Under: The Publishing Business Tagged With: Anne R. Allen, Authenticity readers, The Queen of Staves

April 18, 2021 By Anne R. Allen 67 Comments

Naming Fictional Characters: 10 Tips to Avoid Pitfalls

Naming Fictional Characters: 10 Tips to Avoid Pitfalls

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 […]

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Filed Under: Writing Craft Tagged With: Anne R. Allen, character name research sites, Character names, How to name fictional characters, The Queen of Staves

February 2, 2020 By Anne R. Allen 64 Comments

Is That Me in Your Novel? When Life Imitates Fiction, and Vice-Versa

Is That Me in Your Novel? When Life Imitates Fiction, and Vice-Versa

by Anne R. Allen Recently I got a furious Facebook message from a stranger who accused me of “using her life” in one of my books.  It’s amazing how sometimes life imitates fiction. She had apparently been a Facebook friend, and she dramatically unfriended me after sending a distraught DM describing the traumas in her […]

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Filed Under: The Publishing Business, The Writing Life Tagged With: how to fictionalize a memoir, The Queen of Staves, turning real life into fiction

July 21, 2019 By Anne R. Allen 36 Comments

8 Reasons Why Your Manuscript May be Getting Rejections

8 Reasons Why Your Manuscript May be Getting Rejections

Rejections hurt. And all writers get them. But you can reduce the number. by Anne R. Allen I’ve been perusing some agent sites recently to see if their advice has changed since I was on the query-go-round a couple of decades ago. But things seem to have remained much the same. The top reasons for […]

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Filed Under: Writers Dealing with Reviews and Rejection, Writing Craft Tagged With: Literary agents, pacing, queries, The Queen of Staves, Unsympathetic characters, voice, World Building

January 7, 2018 By Anne R. Allen 93 Comments

8 Qualities That Are More Important than Talent for Writing Success

8 Qualities That Are More Important than Talent for Writing Success

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 […]

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Filed Under: The Publishing Business, The Writing Life Tagged With: critique groups and criticism, Michael Ventura, Talent, The Myth of Talent, The Queen of Staves, writing rules

October 22, 2017 By Anne R. Allen 91 Comments

Amazon’s Latest Crackdowns: Do they Include Amazon Review Trolls?

Amazon’s Latest Crackdowns: Do they Include Amazon Review Trolls?

Where will Amazon review trolls lurk now the Amazon fora are gone? by Anne R. Allen Amazon periodically cracks down on users who have been abusing their customer review and ranking systems. Most of us are happy when the giant retailer takes steps to combat the abuse. Cheaters take money out of our pockets and […]

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Filed Under: Writers Dealing with Reviews and Rejection Tagged With: Amazon crackdown, Amazon forum trolls, Amazon reviews, Anne Rice, David Gaughran, Internet trolls, The Queen of Staves, Victoria Strauss, weaponized Amazon reviews

September 17, 2017 By Anne R. Allen 87 Comments

Want to Increase Your Blog Readership? Kill that Popup!

Want to Increase Your Blog Readership? Kill that Popup!

Popups proliferate like Tribbles, but they’re not as cute. by Anne R. Allen Studies tell us the popup is the most hated form of marketing on the Web. A popup is the contemporary version of those phone calls that used to interrupt your life just as you were sitting down to a family dinner. The […]

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Filed Under: Blogging for Authors, Social Media and Marketing For Writers Tagged With: 10twelve Marketing, blog subscribers, blog traffic, Paul Alan Fahey, pop-up ads, popups, Roz Morris, sadistic popup ads, The Queen of Staves

August 20, 2017 By Anne R. Allen 57 Comments

Memoir or Fiction: Should you Novelize Your Real Life Experiences?

Memoir or Fiction: Should you Novelize Your Real Life Experiences?

Memoir or Fiction? What’s best for telling your own story? by Anne R. Allen Some people say all writing is autobiographical, and to a certain extent that’s true. I always say writers ought to Mirandize everybody we meet — “I’m a novelist. Anything you say can be taken down and used against you in a […]

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Filed Under: The Publishing Business, Writing Craft Tagged With: Anna Sabino, creative nonfiction, David Whiting, how to write memoir, memoir, The Queen of Staves, Writer's Boon, writing memoir that sells

July 23, 2017 By Anne R. Allen 70 Comments

Writer’s Block and Depression: Why Writers Need to “Fill the Well”

Writer’s Block and Depression: Why Writers Need to “Fill the Well”

Writer’s block can be a sign of incipient depression. by Anne R. Allen Writer’s block is probably the most popular topic in the writing posts on Medium, the popular new (ish) blogging platform. Lots of Millennials use Medium, and their posts offer an insight into our culture’s future. I’ve been amazed to see how many young […]

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Filed Under: The Writing Life Tagged With: Angela Macintosh, depression in writers, Julia Cameron, Keri Knutson, Lindsay Knowles, Medium, Nancy Andreasen, So Much for Buckingham, The Queen of Staves, Writers block

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Anne R. AllenAnne R. Allen writes funny mysteries and how-to-books for writers. She also writes poetry and short stories on occasion. She’s a contributor to Writer’s Digest and the Novel and Short Story Writer’s Market.

Her bestselling Camilla Randall Mystery Series features perennially down-on-her-luck former socialite Camilla Randall—who is a magnet for murder, mayhem and Mr. Wrong, but always solves the mystery in her quirky, but oh-so-polite way.

Ruth Harris NYT best selling authorRuth is a million-copy New York Times bestselling author, Romantic Times award winner, former Big 5 editor, publisher, and news junkie.

Her emotional, entertaining women’s fiction and critically praised novels have sold millions of copies in hard cover, paperback and ebook editions, been translated into 19 languages, sold in 30 countries, and were prominent selections of leading book clubs including the Literary Guild and the Book Of The Month Club.

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