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Save the Cat! Cracking the Beat Sheet

February 23, 2021 by Cathy Stucker Leave a Comment

“Save the Cat!” by Blake Snyder was originally written as a tool for screenwriters. Snyder presents a structure for successful storytelling that has been adapted for use by novelists as well as the original audience. Now his work has been reimagined as a video course. The idea behind STC is simple: There are elements that are necessary to create an effective story. Snyder … [Read more...]

Stop Procrastinating, Start Writing

February 11, 2021 by Cathy Stucker Leave a Comment

Would-be authors claim they want to write a book, but in fact they want to have already written a book. Writing is hard! Author Joseph Heller once said, “Every writer I know has trouble writing.” And he’s not the only one who has alluded to the difficulty of writing. Stephen King’s quote, “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work,” … [Read more...]

Creating a Villain Your Readers Will Love to Hate

May 21, 2020 by Cathy Stucker

Creating multi-dimensional characters will make your fiction impossible to put down! Your villains should be at least as interesting as your heroes, and this graphic suggests ways to create unforgettable villains for your stories. … [Read more...]

Design and Layout of Your Self-Published Book

May 7, 2020 by Cathy Stucker

  We hear a lot about the importance of a great book cover, but what about the inside of your book? Looks are important there, too. Interior design is one of the major decisions you’ll have to make about your self-published book. But it’s not as daunting as you might think, even if right now you are not even sure what “interior design” is. Start by looking at … [Read more...]

Avoid These Words to Make Your Writing Strong

April 23, 2020 by Cathy Stucker

Even experienced authors have weaknesses in their writing. Just as some speakers fall into bad habits, such as saying um or uh, most of us have some bad habits. Maybe you slip into passive voice or use the same word(s) too frequently. Or perhaps you use unnecessary words that add nothing to your prose. The graphic below describes five common mistakes that make your writing weak … [Read more...]

The Move From CreateSpace to KDP – What You Need to Know

August 30, 2018 by Cathy Stucker

I am seeing a lot of people panic over the upcoming move from CreateSpace (CS) to KDP. Authors are talking about removing all of their books from CS and generally freaking out over the transition. I’m sure it won’t go perfectly smoothly (It’s too big a change for that.) but there is no reason to panic. So take a deep breath, sip your tea, and we will go over what to … [Read more...]

Creating Effective Book Descriptions for Amazon

June 1, 2017 by Cathy Stucker

People always judge a book by its cover. You have a great cover, right? That’s one of the most important ways to capture people’s attention when they’re searching through Amazon or any bookseller trying to find a book that interests them. After looking at a cover, the next thing people do is look at the book’s blurb, or description. Creating a great description is a … [Read more...]

How Long Should My Book Be?

May 5, 2017 by Cathy Stucker

Writing a book can be a daunting task, and many writers wonder how many words they need to complete a book. Is a 50,000 word manuscript long enough? Is a 200,000 word manuscript too long? (Another question is how many words make up a page in a printed book. That varies a lot, depending on the trim size and layout, but you might assume about 350 words per page.) The simple … [Read more...]

Book Promotion With Facebook

November 28, 2016 by Cathy Stucker

Facebook is one of the world’s highest traffic websites, and those visitors tend to spend a tremendous amount of time on the site. This makes for somewhat of a captive audience, and yours ads will often get a lot more attention than ads on other websites. There are a number of subjects Facebook doesn’t allow, so you need to be sure your book, and your graphics, adhere to … [Read more...]

Writing Tips from Stephen King

November 1, 2016 by Cathy Stucker

Stephen King is one of the most popular fiction writers of our day, and his book offers writers insight into King's view of the writer's craft. This infographic shares 14 tips from . Read what King has to say about passive tense, what makes the best stories, description, setting a daily writing goal and what paves the road to hell. [Note: This infographic appeared on … [Read more...]

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