Readers want to see character growth and change through the course of the story. This is the character arc of your story. Character growth can be as simple as having your heroine realize she doesn’t need a man in her life to be happy, or as complex as overcoming the childhood trauma of abuse. Here…
The adjective that exists solely as decoration is a self-indulgence for the writer and a burden for the reader. … make your adjectives do work that needs to be done. —William Zinsser, On Writing Well
“Bloated, chunky, dull dialogue is a five-alarm warning to the reviewer that you can’t write salable fiction,” says James Scott Bell in his book The Art of War for Writers. Dialogue, like any other part of your novel, must move your story forward. An important part of good dialogue is the distinctive voice of each…
I want to accomplish as much as I can when I’m writing, so I utilize keyboard shortcuts. Many of these MS Word shortcuts translate over to other word processing programs such as Scrivener (the one I use). Here is a list of MS Word keyboard shortcuts to help you save time as you write your…
Take a look at the picture above. What’s the first thing that comes into your mind? Danger? A bygone era? What ever your thought was, the fact is the picture triggered that thought. That is the creativity of your mind in action. Now think about how you can use what’s in this photo in your work in…
So you’ve started a blog and are wondering if you should trademark your blog’s title. According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), a trademark is a brand name and includes any word, name, symbol, device, or any combination thereof that is intended to identify the goods or services of a seller. Like…
Copyright infringement concerns many creative people, be they writers, musicians, movie makers, or otherwise. A complaint I hear from many beginning writers deals with copyrights and whether publishers will steal their stories. Having a rudimentary understanding of the law will put your mind at rest. An idea is not copyright protected. According to attorney Tonya…
Before you can request permission to use copyrighted material you must know one very important item: who owns the right to grant permission. That right does not always belong to the author of the work. With books, it is often the publisher who holds permission rights. The info is generally found on the reverse side…