Forced to Wait

What will your characters do?

From across the country for the past few weeks, we’ve been seeing how people react to needing to give up normal activities.

If you’re writing a novel, that information might prove useful. While I doubt your story involves a global pandemic, you can still apply these insights into human behavior.

If your novel has characters, it’s likely they … Continue reading

Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

That’s the question people perpetually ask writers.

“If you ask a writer who has heard that same question dozens of times,” novelist Elizabeth Peters said, “she may come back with some snappy answer like, ‘There’s a drugstore in North Dakota where I order mine.’”

“The only possible answer,” Peters said, “is ‘Everywhere.’ You don’t get ideas; you see them, recognize them, greet them … Continue reading

Know Your Genre

including its clichés.

How well should you know your fiction genre? Well enough to know not only its expectations, but also its overused elements.

If you’re writing romance, you should be familiar enough with what others have published that you avoid like the plague the well-worn technique of having two potential love interests literally bump into each other.

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