A lot of attention gets paid to social media without really understanding a fundamental concept – social capital. In addition to all its other characteristics and traits, social media transactions depend on – for lack of a better term – a currency. You earn it as you give and pay it when you ask. This…
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Crafting Dialogue–or Avoiding it Altogether
My TV-watching habits, well documented in my earlier stint as an RMFW blog contributor, have started me thinking a lot about dialogue recently. Going to the movies last night kicked those thinky thoughts into high gear, so today I’m going to translate those thinky thoughts into writey thoughts. Many new writers think that dialogue should…
Writing Romance: Starting with a Great Hero
Which came first, the plot or the character? Likely a question as old as fiction writing. I’m not going to answer this question so you can relax. But what I am going to say is that, at least for romance novels, readers fall in love with characters. Not plots. So where do we start writing…
Rocky Mountain Writer #75
Abby J. Reed & When Planets Fall Abby J. Reed is the guest with her first novel, When Planets Fall. The young adult science fiction fantasy comes out later this spring from Soul Mate Press and it has already drawn nifty advance praise. Kirkus Reviews has already called it “propulsive” and “sharply crafted.” On the…
Random Thoughts
1. In the latest review on Amazon for The Asphalt Warrior, the first book in the eight-book series by the late Gary Reilly, a reader wrote: “Writers, good ones, create their readers. And this book does that.” Do good writers “create their own readers?” I love that idea. Are you going after your readers? Or…