I do it every damn time. I keep thinking one of these days I’ll learn, but I never seem to. In every single book, I hit a point where I’m completely and utterly convinced that it’s terrible. That THIS one is the book I’ll have to pull the plug on and admit to failure. It…
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Short Story Anthologies with Class (for my homework)
By Patricia Stoltey I just finished reading the complete Crossing Colfax anthology from Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, then headed off to Goodreads and Amazon to post my comments and rate the book a big beautiful five stars. Writers who can produce quality stories with unique ideas, imaginative twists, and great characters, and fit all of…
Luck and Timing
By Mary Gillgannon “How lucky do you feel you are?” My first editor asked me that question as we were discussing promotion for my second book. She went on to say that for most of the successful authors she knew, luck had played an important part in their careers. Her advice was to do “as…
The Next Big Thing
We’ve seen all these phenomenal books take off to best seller status – The Da Vinci Code, Gone Girl, Harry Potter, Fifty Shades of Gray – and now there’s mutterings within the writing community about what the next “big thing” will be. Well, those mutterings never cease, but it’s a new year and therefore new…
Adventures in Genre Writing Lesson Six: Dialogue
Dialogue – Putting Words in Your Characters’ Mouths By Jeanne C. Stein Last month we looked at plotting and defining our inciting incident. In this lesson we’ll touch on one of the most important building blocks in writing: Dialogue. There are lots of authors who excel at dialogue, but none better than mystery writer, the…