May 2014 archive

I Pledge Allegiance to the Flow

When did you first know that you were a writer? I can trace it back to saying the Pledge of Allegiance in elementary school. Whenever we got to the line “one Nation under God” I thought it sounded awkward. Now mind you, I had no knowledge of the political forces and controversies surrounding the words …

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Information Dumps

An information dump is exactly what it sounds like: a steaming plop of backstory. It includes facts about characters and events that are relevant to your storyline but predate the opening scene. Often times, these factoids are the very building blocks of your story, but to start with them at the beginning – which is …

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Abram

After two serious pieces, I was planning on writing a lighter, more humorous blog, this month, something more tied to my first piece which came out in February.  That seems so long ago. It’s hard to believe that I once was having a problem thinking of something to write about. Then I reread the comments …

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Lights, Camera, Action: Verb!

I had one of those ah-ha!, slap-your-head-with-the-palm-of-your-hand-*duh* moments recently. This time, that moment was about writing. An article I read discussed ways to improve your writing. In your first draft, the most important thing is to get the words down in whatever perfect or jumbled form you can. The revision stage is where you get …

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Soft, Hard, Harder

When you think romance novel, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Sex, right? Now don’t get distracted visualizing. As the title suggests, sex scenes come in different levels. They can even lean toward a softer side, the more graphic content eliminated. Each has their place in the pages you write. So let’s look …

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