Archive for the ‘Writing Tips’ Category

Welcome to Q & A Wednesdays by Book Mentor, Ezra Barany. This week Ezra addresses 3 qualities of a good title.
Good news! This week’s winner of a 30-minute complimentary consultation of your book with Ezra is: Dixon Rice. Congrats! We’ll be contacting you for your Book Mentoring session with Ezra.
And thank you to author, Matt Posner, author [...]

The character we love to hate. I write fantasy and paranormal, so yeah, the villain, is kind of important. I did some fancy footwork to not have a huge villain in the first book in my series. I have a bad guy; he shows up. Henrietta The Dragon Slayer faces him; stuff happens. I don’t [...]

Welcome to Q & A Wednesdays by Book Mentor, Ezra Barany. This week Ezra addresses how to price your ebooks.
Good news! This week’s winner of a 30-minute complimentary consultation of your book with Ezra is: Dan Calvisi. Congrats! We’ll be contacting you for your Book Mentoring session with Ezra.
And thank you to author, Dixon Rice, author of [...]

Welcome to Twitter Tuesdays where I feature tips on how to use Twitter for authors by authors. This week we have tips on building your platform with Twitter from author, poet and fellow book coach, Catharine Bramkamp. Thanks Catharine! You can follow her on Twitter here.
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A bird sits outside my window. He greets the dawn with [...]

Welcome back to Sunday Videos for Writers, where I post funny, insightful or useful videos for authors. Or plain inspiring ones like this video I found on a random search on youtube for “writer’s block.”
Enjoy this spoken word video by Writers Block.
Then answer the question and share with us a bit of your wisdom. Thanks! We [...]

By the time you ready this I will be in a country far far away…
No, not really, at least not one you and I can see with our eyes.
I’ll be in story land. You know — that place that at first only exists between our ears (okay, between my ears.) And then if I do [...]

If we readers love your characters, then we’ll go with them just about anywhere.
Last week I talked about sharing the telling detail about a character through nouns and verbs.
As writers, it’s our job to use language to have readers fall in love with our characters. One of the most powerful tools we have are metaphors [...]

Welcome to Q & A Wednesdays by Book Mentor, Ezra Barany. This week Ezra plays with the bus metaphor for character development.
Good news this week’s winner of a 30-minute complimentary consultation of your novel with Ezra is: Alica Mckenna Johnson. Congrats! We’ll be contacting you for your Book Mentoring session with Ezra.

This week’s “Q & A Wednesday” [...]

Beth Barany here! Welcome back to Sunday Videos for Writers, where I post funny, insightful or useful videos for authors.
This week’s video was suggested by author, Laura Deal. Thank you!
Whiney Writer – Opening Lines, for The Wild Writers
 

 
What is your favorite bad first line of a novel? What is your favorite first line? What tips do [...]

Last week I shared about how to get clear on our character’s motivation. If your readers don’t “get” your readers it is often because they don’t understand her.
This week I want to focus in how another aspect of character development: the details.
With details, you can relay a character’s voice, share a bit of back story, [...]

I wrote about how I developed my character, Henrietta The Dragon Slayer, in my previous post here.
Today I thought I’d reflect on one of the biggest challenges I see in the manuscripts I edit, and even in some books I read: character motivation.
If I can’t relate to your character, if I don’t “get” her, it’s [...]

Welcome back guest columnist, Bobbye Terry, as she reveals how to use “he said/she said” in dialogue. Her example of before and after is quite useful to see when to use “said” and when to use action tags. We hope this helps fiction writers everywhere. Take it away Bobbye!
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or:
Tagging Along
 
If you’re a writer, you know what [...]

My characters come to me in a flash, like my heroine, Henrietta The Dragon Slayer, acting out her tales of heroism, by reciting her tale while tumbling and jabbing with an imaginary sword in the tavern.
Even though I didn’t use that scene in my novel, her physicality, her enthusiasm and high energy and passion sparked [...]

Welcome back guest columnist, Bobbye Terry, as she uncovers runaway body parts in our novels and what we can do about them? How do you catch and edit your runaway body parts?!
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or:
The Perilous Penis
And other body parts that literally run away with the show
Have you ever been reading a book and suddenly the hero’s genitals [...]

Welcome back guest columnist, Bobbye Terry, as she reveals why we need to axe our backstory. What do you think about backstory?
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Ah, a round of applause for the backstory, all of that information that you, the writer, painstakingly put together to understand what makes your characters tick. If it weren’t for all those events from the past, [...]