Related novellas and short stories are a way of keeping your readers' attention between releases. Stories that tie in to the holidays offer unique marketing opportunities. January : A new year's celebration can be utilized in any genre. Characters can face a celebration gone wrong, review the past, or make resolutions for the new year. There is a reason it is referred to as the "bleak midwinter." February : Valentines Day is a perfect fit for the Romance genre. A novella gives you an opportunity to explore the love lives of secondary characters. There could also be a Valentine murder or a paranormal celebration. March and April : The spring equinox is ripe with opportunity for paranormal rituals, childbirth or expectant parenthood, perhaps madness that leads to murder. May and June : May Day was a time for celebrating new life. It is a good month for a wedding, paranormal conflict, or a slighted lover to take his revenge. July and August : The summer heat ca...

I love the actress Jennifer Lawrence. I have watched all of her movies and admired her portrayal of Katniss Everdine in The Hunger Games , Mystique in the X-Me n, and Tiffany in the Silver Linings Playbook. I also love spy movies. So, I eagerly settled into my theater seat to view Red Sparrow , a tale of a Russian dancer turned Soviet Agent. *** WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD *** There was the setup and inciting event: dancer is injured, thereby ending her career and income stream. She has a sick mother who needs medical care (personal dilemma). Enter the uncle who proposes a new job: become an agent or her mother dies (story goal). The first twist: she was intentionally injured by the leading man and another dancer. She gets brutal revenge so we see Dominique has the capacity for violence. Then the plot swan dives: they send her to, in her words, whore school. Neither men nor women are spared explicit sexual exploitation. There she learns to use her sexuality as a weapon an...

In a month of gratitude, I want to put a shout out to all those who help other writers become better at their craft so they can continue to feed my book addiction. My motto has always been: Life is Too Short for Bad Fiction. You can see my own contributions (the Story Building Blocks  series) to this effort on my website . I love looking through the Great Courses Catalog that comes through the mail. A long string of classes on DVDs and books line our shelves. You can learn everything from history, mathematics, and science to the humanities all in the comfort of your living room, office, or car, via DVD player or downloads onto your PC. Years ago I found the course Building Great Sentences   by Brooks Landon . It changed my writing forever. I vaguely remembered diagramming sentences in high school, but this course turned language into building blocks that are as colorful and versatile as L EGO®s . As if reading my mind that writers needed more master classes in w...