In any given situation, each individual involved in that situation will perceive the exact same things happening in different—sometimes shockingly different—ways. That’s why crime scene witness testimony is often contradictory. The same concept should be true in every scene we write in our stories. No two characters will experience the events within a scene in…
Author: Kelley J. P. Lindberg
10 Ways to Handle Rejection Letters
Well, drat. You just received a(nother) rejection letter from an agent or editor. You can spend the next 48 hours sulking, watching Netflix, doom-scrolling, or threatening to move to Belize and take up watermelon farming. Or… you could try one of these methods of dealing with rejection instead: [Photo by Thomas Park https://unsplash.com/@thomascpark on Unsplash]
Map Out a Plan to Boost Your Writing Career
What do you need to take your writing to the next level? Do you wish you were stronger in some aspect of your writing skills? Or maybe the business side of your writing career could use some bolstering. Perhaps it’s your workspace or your writing schedule (or lack of) that’s impeding your progress. If it’s…
National Poetry Month—Not Just for Poets!
April is National Poetry Month. So why should that matter to fiction writers? Because poetry is the marriage of words and ideas, blending the two together to create something greater than the sum of their parts—which is exactly the same thing fiction does. Personally, I believe reading poetry (and, if you choose, writing the occasional…
The Secret to Using Secrets in Your Writing
Let’s talk about secrets. Okay, sure the whole point about secrets is that you’re not supposed to talk about them. But as authors, we are the gods of our made-up worlds, and we can break all the rules we want. For writers like us, secrets are one of the many “secret” weapons in our arsenal,…