Last week, I discussed the importance of fatal flaws (and strengths) in romance (I also talked about hate-at-first sight on the NaNoWriMo blog!). This week, I want to look at what all of this stuff means on a scene-level. Like, how do we bring the romance to life in an actual scene? It’s All About the […]
As I mentioned in the first blog in this series, romance is all about characters growing. More specifically, romance springs from a character overcoming a fatal flaw. A character’s fatal flaw is her (or his) largest weakness. It is what holds your character back and keeps her from achieving her goals. For example, in E.M. Forster’s A […]
Hey guys, I know I promised a second post for the “How to Write a Romance” series, but clearly that’s not happening. I’ll be honest: my wrists are shot. They’ve been getting worse and I’ve been ignoring the pain (these wrist support bands are just for style!), pretending I don’t notice the obvious side-effects of […]
A month or so back, someone asked me (in the forums) about writing romance. This is no easy topic to tackle, and it’s something that every author approaches differently. But, I thought I could share a few general rules and also share how I approach romantic elements in my own stories. Romance as a Genre […]
A month ago, Melody Simpson reached out to me and asked if I’d be interested in setting up a 5K fundraiser. I think I terrified her with my response of “OMG YES LET’S DO THIS” (especially since I answered her, like, 5 seconds after she messaged me). Neither of us really had any idea what […]
It’s CONVENTION TIME!! This month marks the beginning of what I consider “con season”. With RT starting tomorrow (see my schedule here) and then many more cons to follow (BEA, RWA, Comic Con, World Con, Dragon*Con, etc.), I have to get myself in The Convention Zone. In other words, I have to make myself look […]
Today’s post is sort of a catch-all post on critique partners. Links, terms, and advice (hopefully good advice!) follow, but to start, I’ll share the question that prompted today’s post: Okay, so I was wondering how you set up your critique partnerships and if you have any general rules for who first reads your manuscript, or […]
Ahhhhh, the dreaded infodump. It’s so easy for any writer to accidentally do, and it’s also so easy for any reader to lose patience with. 😉 But there are ways to weave in description and setting and backstory WITHOUT bogging down a scene. It all has to do with timing and what feels natural. Now, I should mention that when it comes to […]
A few weeks ago, I got this question in my inbox: How would you go about outlining [a trilogy]? Would you outline it as a whole or each book individually? Awesome question! And obviously, everyone outlines/plans series differently, so I can only tell you how I plan a series. Hopefully that information is still helpful, though. […]
Recently, I received a question in the Daydreamers forum about research–where I do it, how I do it. I actually did a series on this forever ago (like, 4 years!! Can you believe I’ve been blogging so long?!), so now seems like a good time to re-address this subject. Now, I’ve met writers who think that […]
