As a relatively new member of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers (coming up on 5 years), I’ve enjoyed learning about the organization’s history from the newsletter and interviews with founding members. 40 years is nothing to sniff at, especially in this age of shortening attention spans and shifting loyalties. But if we want RMFW to survive…
One of the first tenets of successful novel writing is that without conflict, you’ve got no story. Conflict is what keeps the reader turning pages. Without it, your story comes to a halt while you clear your throat, meander around aimlessly, and stare at the wall. In his craft book Conflict and Suspense, author James…
A friend recently confessed that she was bored by a book she had read for a book club. Having just slogged through the same book myself, I agreed completely. As I writer, I knew exactly why the book didn’t work for me. But the woman I was chatting with couldn’t articulate why she hated the…
If there’s one thing I never want to hear about my stories it’s that they’re “hard to finish.”
One Editing tip of the day: When you write a 100,000-word novel you have made 100,000 choices. Think about it! How many of those choices were active choices. And how many of those were easy, lazy choices? Unconscious choices? Could you rewrite one of your novels and use 100,000 completely different words and tell the…