What your characters need most

What your characters need most

As you know, if you’ve been following this blog, I’ve been going through some personal unpleasantness recently. I was living in Kyiv just before the war started and have been moving around in uncertainty since. My apartment in Kyiv is in a spot that easily could be...
Thinking of Why and What we write

Thinking of Why and What we write

The wonderful author Kathleen Gilles Seidel just said something to me and my podcast co-host, Pru Warren, that really grabbed me. We were talking about writing and publishing when she first started out thirty years ago. For those of you who don’t know, Kathy wrote...
Repeated Motifs

Repeated Motifs

Today I’m going to share with you a concept that you’ll probably all remember studying in your high school or college literature classes: repeated motifs. It sounds very high-brow and perhaps even high-fallutin’ but, in fact, it’s a really neat way of getting across a...
Five Endings To Avoid

Five Endings To Avoid

Last week I talked about beginnings, so this week it makes sense that I talk about endings. There are a number of ways you should NOT end your book. I’m going to run through a few of them and make recommendations for good alternatives as I do so. Now, usually, I write...
Great Beginnings

Great Beginnings

What is it that takes your reader from their comfy chair and places them into the world of your story? What makes a reader lose themselves in a book? It takes a great beginning. Is that beginning made of action? Is it character? Is it setting? What is it that is going...