An interesting character to the reader is going to be one that isn’t perfect. Perfection is boring. Writers should create characters with bad habits or character flaws they just can’t seem to shake. In Joanna Scott’s Follow Me, the main character keeps running from her poor decisions to a new town and a new surname. She’s really… Continue reading Imperfect Characters Make Perfect Characters
Category: Writing
Economic Crunch for Small Publishers
There are some regularly scheduled writer’s chats over varying topics each week and I don’t often get to attend them. During the course of one I recently attended it was mentioned a small publishing house would not be publishing any new books for the remainder of the year and not accept any new submissions until 2010. … Continue reading Economic Crunch for Small Publishers
Characters on a Journey
One reason why readers keep reading a story or book is to find out what happens to the characters. Sometimes an event will push the main character on their journey and other times the main character comes to a realization and acts on it. Examples of an event would be job loss, war or a death. … Continue reading Characters on a Journey
Writing As Your Characters
One key to writing a successful novel is to slip inside the skin of the characters. Narrators can provide a buffer between the reader and the characters. The reader gets to know the character from the narrator’s point of view which is not always reliable. But when the reader gets to know what the character… Continue reading Writing As Your Characters
Memoirs, Movies and Those (Mostly) True Stories – Guest Post by Steve Luxenberg
 Memoirs, Movies and Those (Mostly) True Stories A Writer’s Take on Reality’s Rough Edges By Steve Luxenberg, Author of Annie’s Ghosts: A Journey Into a Family Secret Why do they do it? Why do so many film makers put “based on a true story” or some variation as one of their opening frames, when they… Continue reading Memoirs, Movies and Those (Mostly) True Stories – Guest Post by Steve Luxenberg
Short Story Writing Advice
The wonderful thing I’ve found about writers is no matter where they are in their writing journey they are helpful to other writers. Now, one local published writer will tell a completely different tale but that’s his version of events and it’s only hearsay. My experience has shown no method works exactly the same from… Continue reading Short Story Writing Advice
Author Interviews Work
Last week I listened to a Kathy Griffin interview on NPR on my way into work. At one point she mentioned she knew NPR listeners were readers. Poor Kathy either forgot to mention or it was cut out that her own book is being released in September. The title is a plea for Oprah to… Continue reading Author Interviews Work
Adaptability
Isn’t it amazing how adaptable people and plants are? For twelve days I’ve had no hot water. We called our home warranty company that first morning. Plumbers, purchasing departments and so on seem to run on different time tables than the rest of us. I was surprised to receive a phone call yesterday informing me of… Continue reading Adaptability
The iPhone and Kindle
I may or may not have mentioned it before but when it comes to new technology I’m a slow adopter. It’s not because I don’t want some of the latest and greatest gadgets. I spent many years working in the Help Desk industry and have seen too many cases of where getting the latest and… Continue reading The iPhone and Kindle
My Bookcase
We have several bookshelves in our house. Most of them are built-in pieces but I only have two to call my own. The first is in our living room and holds some of my TBR pile including many issues of comics I need to catch up on. One day soon I should organize it so it doesn’t… Continue reading My Bookcase