I was reading a pretty interesting book. However, for some reason, I had moments where I couldn’t fully immerse myself in the story. I couldn’t figure out why. As I kept reading, I realized the author did a lot of telling instead of showing. Made it hard for me to Read more…
Never assume you’re bad at something until you get a 2nd or 3rd opinion. I used to think I was bad a writing dialogue. But, workshops, beta readers and editors kept complimenting my dialogue. We are probably the worst at telling what’s good or bad about our writing. I read Read more…
All the advice said writing a fantasy series is better than several standalone books. Despite, that, when I first started thinking about publishing, I had no intention of writing a series. I don’t remember why exactly. I think up until that point, I’d only ever written standalone books and wasn’t Read more…
Whether or not authors should read their own book reviews has been a topic written about a lot. Some people say yes. Most people say no. Honestly, it’s up to you. I used to read my own reviews. But, the negative ones had a bad impact on my mental health. Read more…
Often novel writing, especially with fantasy books, is about using a setting you can’t see. Some people are fortunate enough to plan a trip for their novels. I’ve never been that fortunate. I have traveled a lot, though. In The Sciell’s Legacy, the 4th and final book in The Merging Read more…
We all have those moments while creating a novel or short story when we think our current work-in-progress is terrible. No one will want to read it and if they do, they’re going to hate it. Those thoughts should be put in the garbage where they belong. They do not Read more…
I abandoned one book because I realized halfway through that I hadn’t read most of it. The story seemed to be 90% filler. I skipped it all because I was waiting for the book to get the point. 50% in, no point in sight. Classic case of an interesting story Read more…
“The great mass of trees looked like a tomb, in which my house lay buried.” (from Who Knows? by Guy de Maupassant) It’s lines like the one above that get me excited about writing and reading haunted stories. You can’t just describe a location, you have to do it in Read more…
There’s a lot of advice out there for fantasy writers. It comes from a lot of different places: agents, publishers, editors, writing professors, bloggers, and authors. They’ll tell you the magic formula for creating a compelling, “good” story. They’ll give you a laundry list of do’s and don’t’s. As a Read more…
There’s a ton of advice out there on how to deal with bad reviews. They like to say “dwell on the good reviews.” What if you don’t have any glowing reviews to off-set the negative/indifferent ones? I’ve been having this problem. It’s not something I talk about much because I Read more…
