Advice from Professional Writers (11)

One of my favorite things about this blog is when I come across topics that other writers find helpful in their writing. These posts will get the most views, and I think the writers I reach here are thankful for my love to share the things I’ve gathered in my toolbox over the years. I

Creating a Strong Protagonist

Over the next few posts, we will examine the importance of building the characters who will carry your novel’s storyline. (Short stories may not have all these characters due to the length and focus of the storyline.) There are FOUR-character types, (the Protagonist, the Antagonist, the Love Interest, and Other Characters) who will populate the

Time Management

One of the hardest things facing writers is Time Management. Many writers deal with juggling full-time jobs, children, and other distractions along with their writing life. Even those who are lucky enough to consider themselves full-time writers deal with the upheavals of everyday life and other things competing with writing time. So, how do you

Good Advice from Louis Sachar

Louis Sachar is an American author of children’s books. He was born on 20 March 1954. (This information comes from his website, and I think it is sound advice for authors wishing to write children’s books.) After graduating from law school, Sachar practiced law part-time while writing children’s books. In 1989, he became a full-time writer. He

Introducing Your Characters

In this Blog entry, read suggestions on how to introduce and create three-dimensional characters.

Are you an Over Writer?

It isn’t always easy to identify whether you overwrite, so here are a few clues: Your description language is overblown. Does your narration obliterate any ‘showing’ of your story? While descriptions are essential to set the scene, they shouldn’t be in a block of narrative. USE your CHARACTERS to describe the scene. Are you describing the

The Starting Point – Effective Writing

One of the easiest ways to self-edit is to begin with effective writing. While you are writing the second and third drafts, you need to concentrate on the principles I will discuss in this blog. Currently, I’m editing the short stories that are coming in for the latest Anthology – 2021 Indie Authors’ Short Story

The Rewrite

I’m currently working on the editing for this years’ upcoming Indie Author Short Story Anthology. I have the pleasure of working with writers who bring a great deal of enthusiasm and creativity to their short stories. As I go through the process of editing their stories, I will comment briefly on grammar and syntax, but

Make it happen: how to accomplish your SMART goals

For the past few Blog entries, I’ve discussed SMART Goals, and written about how to write SMART goals – but knowing how to achieve them is a totally separate challenge. So, you’ve already taken a great first step by using the SMART criteria to set attainable, measurable, results-based targets. But there are a few other

T is for Time-bound

The last letter in SMART goals is the T. Not only does this represent the need for a deadline, but it also encourages the writer to explore their plan for a defined amount of time. In other words, each of your goals should have time-related parameters built-in. This gives you additional structure and allows you