Writing Tips

Twitterific Writing Links

March 22, 2015March 21, 2015Twitterific, Writing Tips

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Twitterific writing links are fed into the Writer’s Knowledge Base search engine (developed by writer and software engineer Mike Fleming) which has over 30,000 free articles on writing related topics. It’s the search engine for writers.

Why So Many People Write at Starbucks: http://ow.ly/Kl2NW @theryanlanz

3 Career Reinvention Tips From A Reporter Turned Romance Writer: http://ow.ly/KkYhI by Cindy Fazzi @forbes

5 Ingredients for Great Characters That You’re Not Using (Yet): http://ow.ly/KkY7J @screencrafting

Music For Writers: A Quartet Named @ethelcentral & Guitarist @KakiKing http://ow.ly/KyzaY @Porter_Anderson @EcstaticMusic @Q2music

Editing Clauses in Publishing Contracts: How to Protect Yourself: http://ow.ly/KlUWl @victoriastrauss

How Mirror Characters Can Illustrate Literary Themes: http://ow.ly/KlVGC @SaraL_Writer Continue reading

Creating Antagonists in Your Fiction

March 16, 2015March 16, 2015Uncategorized, Writing Tips

Guest Post by Jack Smith

Antagonists can be persons or larger forces—groups, institutions, the society as a whole, nature, or the cosmos. Plots dealing with larger forces tend to embody conflicts with individuals as representative of these larger forces. In conflicts with nature, individual antagonists can complicate these conflicts.

Let’s concentrate, then, on individuals…

Make sure your antagonist isn’t a one-dimensional or cardboard character, but is multi-dimensional—a worthy character to do battle with.

Avoid overshadowing your protagonist, but make your antagonist interesting enough to engage the reader; make him or her somewhat sympathetic, or at least empathetic, someone the reader can relate to. Namely:Continue reading

Twitterific Writing Links

March 8, 2015March 6, 2015Twitterific, Writing Tips

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

50 Questions to Ask Yourself About Your Author Platform: http://ow.ly/JLinR @amcbooks

Simple Promo Tip: Call Your Book By its Name: http://ow.ly/JLiry @SharonBially

Why it’s a problem that writers never talk about where their money comes from: http://ow.ly/JLic1 @annbauerwriter

How to Eke Out 2 Hours of Writing Per Day: http://ow.ly/JLiJV @amcbooks

5 Ways to Fall in Love With Marketing Your Work: http://ow.ly/JLitQ by Kent Bridgeman @DIYMFA Continue reading

Use Attitude When Introducing Characters

March 2, 2015March 2, 2015Uncategorized, Writing Tips

by Jodie Renner, editor and author @JodieRennerEd

To celebrate the release of her third writing guide, Captivate Your Readers, Jodie has priced it at 99 cents for today only and will also be giving away 4 electronic copies – your choice of mobi (for Kindle), ePub (for other e-readers), or PDF – of this book, in exchange for an honest review by the end of March. Enter to win in the comments below.

A sure sign of a fiction writer who’s still learning his/her craft is when a character comes on the scene for the first time and the writer stops the story to describe the character from head to toe – height, build, hair color, eyes, other facial features, and all the details of their clothing, including colors, down to their shoes. Then the story picks up where it left off and carries on.

My latest writing guide, Captivate Your Readers, devotes four chapters to how to introduce and describe characters in a natural, intriguing way. The basic message is to stay in the protagonist’s viewpoint when introducing him, and describe other characters through the POV of the character observing them, not neutrally, as the author stepping in. Here, I’ll be discussing effective techniques for describing other characters through the observations and attitudes of the viewpoint character (most often the protagonist).Continue reading

Twitterific Writing Links

March 1, 2015February 28, 2015Twitterific, Writing Tips

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Agent @Janet_Reid on strategy for a second book: http://ow.ly/JrwhL

The Art of ARC-ing: http://ow.ly/JrsOs @MarcyKate

Calendars, Timelines, and Collages: Mapping the Imaginary: http://ow.ly/JrwhM from Hannah Gerson @The_Millions

8 Tips From Literary Agents About How to Get Published: http://ow.ly/JrteH @monicamclark

Mobile Marketing Just for Authors: http://ow.ly/JL4g4 @CaballoFrances