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Backstory Timeline

It was recently brought home to me the importance of creating a timetable for my characters’ and their family’s backstory. The dates when things happened and how they interrelate can be vital to a story’s viability. And especially when writing historical fiction, you need to know not only what happened to your characters and those connected to them (friends, family) as necessary, but what was…

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I Missed My Anniversary!

I can’t believe I missed my anniversary! Well, actually, I can. My husband and I regularly miss our wedding anniversary—if it wasn’t for my mother-in-law calling to wish us a happy anniversary every year we’d never remember. But I’m not talking about that one. I’m talking about the one of January 1st of 2004 – twenty years and nearly 11 months ago. Would you believe that is the date my very first…

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Kortex: A Review

In my continuous quest for the perfect writing/PKMS (Personal Knowledge Management System) for authors, a new app has come to my attention: Kortex. (Warning: this is a pretty long post.) This is so new, they have a wait list of people who would like to give the software a try, although it’s ridiculously easy to by-pass that and get right on (I’ll tell you how later). The app hasn’t officially…

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Style Sheets

This week I want to tell you about something that you would never think would aid you as a writer, but now I can’t imagine writing or editing the work of others without it. Style sheets. What is a style sheet? Well, if you work for a publisher or a company that produces a lot of written work, you’ll know that a lot of companies have their own style sheet. These are company-wide rules of grammar…

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Writing to Your Strengths

Image by Casey Colton on Deviant Art I am a very strong believer in trying new things—whether it be a new food, a new experience, or something new with your writing. With just about every book I write, I try to use a new tool or a new way of organizing my writing. I try new programs—Scrivener, Atticus, Novlr, or Plottr. I use a virtual notebook, or a physical one. I write long hand, or type away…

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Showing Emotion

Continuing on with the Emotion Theme: We’ve all been there: reading a book, looking forward to the exciting bit where the hero(ine) really gets to show their chops. We know it’s coming, and we’ve been looking forward to it since we figured out that they’ve got to stand strong and do whatever it is that needs to be done. And then it happens—the big fight, the luscious kiss, whatever it is—and…

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Bringing Emotion

When I first started writing, I was told that if my character cried on the page, my reader wouldn’t. If I wanted to bring tears to my reader’s eyes, my character’s eyes needed to be dry while they were completely torn up inside. As with every “Rule” of writing, you can take this one with a grain of salt. But there are still things you need to think about when you’re writing something so…

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Why rebuild the wheel? There’s a template for that!

Two of the most popular apps used in fiction writing are Scrivener and Plottr. Scrivener is incredibly powerful and wide-ranging having so many features most authors don’t even use half of them. Plottr is more simple but getting broader in scope all the time. The thing is, no matter which program you use, you’ll need to organize your work somehow. That’s where templates come in. Other authors…

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An Entrepreneurial Failure

According to the Rock Center for Entrepreneurship at the Harvard Business School, two-thirds of all startups fail. Another statistic cited is that 90% of startups fail within five years. Publishing companies are not only not immune to this, they probably start and fail faster than other types of businesses. Why? Well, for a number of possible reasons, but the two most common are: -the publisher…

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Ugh, Marketing!

I think I know one, maybe two, authors who actually like marketing—and that’s out of over a hundred authors who I know. Marketing is the bane of my authors’ lives. Whether you are traditionally published or indie, you have to market the books you publish (unless you are a multi-million dollar traditionally published author and then your publisher will take care of that for you). That last bit, by…

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Writing Series

There’s nothing nicer than finishing a great book and then realizing that it’s part of a series. You know that you’ve got so many more books to read—yay! But what is it that’s holding that series together? There are different types of series: those where there’s one story that lasts for many books, and those that are many different stories with one common element tying them together. In romance,…

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Placing Your Reader Into Your Story

One of the best things about reading a novel—at least in my opinion—is escaping from my world, my life. When I read I want to stop being me sitting in my home and become someone else somewhere else doing exciting things, having fascinating experiences, falling in love, experiencing things for the first time, etc. But how do you make a reader feel that? Experience that? The best way is to write in…

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Are you a “Workaholic” or an “Engaged Worker”?

There was a fascinating article in The Washington Post on workaholics. I have always claimed to be such a person, but according to the article, workaholics don’t necessarily enjoy their work, they just can’t stop doing it. They work well past quitting time and weekends. The funny thing is their work isn’t necessarily any better than their non-workaholic peers. In fact, a lot of the time it’s not…

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Keeping in Touch

How do you communicate with your readers? (And please don’t say ‘with my books’.) To keep readers engaged between books, as well as letting them know when to expect your next one, it’s important to have a reliable method of communication. There are a number of different ways to keep in touch with your readers. The best one is the one where your readers will be paying attention and where you feel…

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Getting Motivated

What motivates you to get your work done? Is it the money you’ll earn? The recognition? Some internal satisfaction? It could also be your need for control or simple stubbornness. Motivation can sometimes be reduced down to what’s called the “intention-behavior gap”. That would be that space or time between when you decide to do something and when you actually get it done. So, what moves you to…

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Time for your vacation

I don’t know about you, but my boss is The Worst. She doesn’t give me any days unless I apply well in advance. I only get a sick day if I, literally, cannot get out of bed. I have to work late many evenings and am expected to show up to work by 8am at the latest. Why do I put up with this? Well, because I am my own boss. If you’re a freelancer and/or work for yourself it’s quite likely that you…

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Writing for the joy of it

  Have you ever looked at something either in your own life or that of someone else and said, “that would make a great story”? Do you play (or have you ever played) Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, or any other role-playing game? If the answer to either of these questions is yes, then why aren’t you writing these stories down? Or if you have tried and then given up, maybe it’s time for you try…