Notes on Good Grief, by Lolly Winston I teach that a story creates movement and the movement transport an audience. In many of the unpublished novels I read, I’m often 40 pages into a manuscript before I have any idea of a main character’s journey. In some cases, I have to read to the end…
Category Archives: Writing
Crafting Characters
In the world of mystery fiction you need a heroine, a criminal and a victim. Sometimes these descriptions overlap and the heroine is also a victim trying to get revenge. Or the criminal had been a victim in his past and now has a warped sense of right and wrong. Sometimes the victim was a…
Writing a Book? Three Things You Must Know
OK, so you’re writing a book to get your message out. And you want it to bring you new business, too. Maybe you started it a week ago or even five years ago. If you are like most authors, you probably have a few issues about getting it written, published and then using it to…
Finding A Good Idea For Your Book
The journey of a thousand manuscripts pages (or even 150) begins with a single idea. Here’s how to find one. Many people who attend my book publishing seminars already have a book idea in mind. Others, however, have a strong desire to write a book, but are stuck on coming up with a suitable topic….
How to Avoid Wordiness
The mark of a good writer is the ability to say what needs to be said in as few words as possible. Getting straight to the point, without trying to impress or confuse the reader, is the best way to communicate. Deleting unnecessary, wordy, implied, and repetitive phrases can lead to effective sentences. Every writer…
Write and They Will Listen!
It’s all very well writing an article for a magazine, but how can you find out whether your message is engaging the right people and having the desired impact? Executive communications specialist Mindy Gibbins-Klein suggests that the first step to successful communication is accepting that writing very likely to be a one-way approach, at least…
Why We Sometimes Need to Go Back to Basics
I’m a professional author. I’ve written six novels, am currently writing my seventh, and have also published four works of non-fiction. All these books have been written for, and published by, big publishers – the likes of HarperCollins, Random House, the Hachette group and Bloomsbury. So I know what I’m doing. I’m a pro. But…
The Holiday Dead Zone
Note from Cathy: Many of us have free time right after the holiday, and without business demands on us it is easy to fritter it away. Like Robert, I find that there is much that can be accomplished without the demands of my normal work schedule, the telephone ringing, etc. Use this time wisely to…
Quotes About Writing
Here are some of my favorite quotations about writing, from writers and others. Writing is a solitary endeavor, but not a lonely one. When you write, your world is populated by the characters you invent and you feel those people filling your life. —Danielle Steel If my doctor told me I had only six minutes…
Bringing the Dead to Life, Notes on Twilight
I’m always curious when a book becomes a phenomena. Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer, is such a novel. I bought it to see how the story ‘works’ to draw in its audience from the opening lines. In these notes I’ll begin by breaking down the novel’s opening preface line by line. First line, I’d never given…
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