Picture books are their own unique art form, and often it’s a memorable main character that makes a picture book feel so special that you want to read it again and again and share it with everyone you know. Whether the protagonist embodies the theme and goes on a singular adventure, or gets in trouble… Read more »
This installment of the Book Coach Corner series addresses two common misconceptions writers have about when to start writing a novel and when to hire a book coach. Sometimes a book coach is the missing resource a writer needs to help them start their novel. Book Coach Recap Book coaches can support writers throughout the… Read more »
When the writing isn’t going well, I often go to the kitchen, not to consume (well, sometimes), but to reconnect with the creative flow. Seeking kitchen inspiration, I rediscovered the seminal cooking show, The French Chef. The first thing I noticed is that culinary icon Julia Child isn’t perfect. She loses her train of thought,… Read more »
A MacGuffin (sometimes spelled McGuffin) can be a way to draw your characters into the real story. There needs to be something going on at the beginning of the story to hook the reader in and show the characters being proactive—before the full implications of the plot crash down on them. A MacGuffin is an… Read more »
A few weeks ago at a dinner party, I fielded one of my least favorite questions: “What do you do?” In response, I smiled blandly, mentioned my writing, and braced myself for the usual barrage of follow-ups: “How do you support yourself?” “What do you write?” “What inspires you?” No, my writing doesn’t support me…. Read more »
Classification, like periodization, is arbitrary, and much of it derives from marketing. Where do we put in the bookstores, so interested people can find it? A quick tour of the internet, however, may lead us to paraphrase Ozzy Osbourne: How many bloody categories are there? Five, eight, ten? Keeping in mind that historical novels need… Read more »
Hey guys! It’s Alysen back with you, and boy, did you have a lot to say about my last article on Defining SFF. Overwhelmingly, the feedback was a massive group sigh of relief that you are not alone in that vague fog of what the heck. Well, unless you’re my mom. She prefers to be… Read more »
You’ve written your heart out because you know you have a story to tell and you’re the only one to tell it—a story, a novel, a narrative, a memoir, an article, an essay, a letter. And then suddenly you stop. At first, it’s not quite clear that you’re in deep trouble. This happens all the… Read more »
Why both matter and how to get them on the page, from manuscript to query letter On weekend evenings, when the kids are finally asleep, my husband and I turn on the TV and scroll through the streaming platforms, searching for something to watch. We have a hard time agreeing on how to spend our… Read more »
Let us begin with the very basic question: “What is world building?” If you are going to write fiction, every story needs a place to call home, where the action happens, where your characters live. This can be extraordinarily complex (as in the case of fantasy world building), or as simple as “the story takes… Read more »
