For the first and last weeks of our December break this year we are show-casing the posts of some of our former contributors, from the earliest days of the Blood-Red Pencil. Enjoy. L.J. Sellers contributed to the Blood-Red Pencil in 2010, and then returned as a guest blogger a number of times between 2011 and 2016. She’s an award-winning journalist who earned the Grand Neal. L.J. writes the bestselling Detective Jackson mystery/thriller series, the Agent Dallas series, and standalone thrillers. Her novels have been highly praised by reviewers, and she’s one of the highest-rated crime fiction authors on Amazon. L.J. resides in Eugene, Oregon where many of her novels are set. When not plotting murders, she enjoys standup comedy, cycling, social networking, and attending mystery conferences. She’s also been known to jump out of airplanes and hurtle down zip-lines. L.J.'s latest releases A Detective Jackson Mystery #14. When a victim with no ID is found mur...

This interview first published 5/29/2013 and is still a challenging part of the writing process. Don't try to skip it though. ~ Dani  Maryann Miller recently wrote about her beta readers in this post . But what exactly is a beta reader? Sometimes called “first readers”, these are the people who freely read an author’s latest manuscript, usually after the second revision when the story has come together and is fairly solid. Sending a book out for critique at this stage gives the author a chance to break away from the story for a period of time, and then come back with fresh eyes and the help of trusted critical reviews to consider. It’s my observation that beta reading and subsequent revisions make for a stronger story in the final version, even if the author hires an independent editor (especially if only for proofreading the final draft). Dani Beta readers and the help they give an author make dramatic differences in the quality of a story. Today we chat with two autho...

Emotionless, by Timie, via Flickr When I created a homicide detective in my first Jackson book (which has now been translated into six languages!), I purposefully made him a good guy, a family man, someone everyone could relate to. I knew, even back then, that I might spend years with him, writing from his perspective over and over, and I didn’t want to get burnt out on his character flaws. But I throw that caution out the window when I write standalones. I haven’t yet written a protagonist that disgusts me, but I certainly have created some unusual characters. In the Jackson series (#8, Rules of Crime ), I introduced Carla River, a transgender FBI agent, who underwent a change from male to female while working for the bureau. All that’s in her past, and I don’t focus on her sexuality, but still, her nature surprised some readers. I created this character four years ago—long before Caitlyn Jenner became a household name. My current thriller, Point of Control , features an FB...

L.J. Sellers , author of provocative mysteries and thrillers, kicks off the beginning of 2014 for us. Welcome back to the Blood-Red Pencil, L.J. When I sat down with my contact at the FBI to talk about a story in progress, I was expecting just a broad overview of how an eco-terrorist case would be handled. I soon learned that my agent-friend had been the lead on the investigation into the Eugene cell of the Earth Liberation Front, an eco-terrorist group that sabotaged and burned businesses across the northwest, doing millions of dollars in damage. One of the key components of the investigation was to send in an undercover agent to infiltrate the group, and a second strategy was to try and turn those connected to the core member into informants. After hearing how exciting that work had been for him, I knew I had to incorporate both tactics into my story,  Crimes of Memory (Jackson #8) . And so Agent Jamie Dallas was conceived. I had so much fun crafting her charac...

To kick off March, I'm happy to welcome thriller writer, LJ Sellers, a much-missed former member of the Blood-Red Pencil. She has a new book out in her popular thriller series - the best one yet! ~ Dani G. Complex plots keep readers guessing and turning the pages to see how it all fits. As much as readers like to be surprised, they don't want to be confused, and it's often a fine line between the two. As a crime fiction novelist, I've often used parallel plot structures to tell a complex story from multiple points of view, and sometimes even from different time periods. But readers rarely—if ever—complain about being confused by my stories. Maybe I've just been lucky so far, but I also stick to a few simple rules to keep everything straightforward and satisfying. Time and dateline: I label my chapter openings with the date and time. If a chapter/subplot jumps back to a different time period, I label it like this: Six months earlier. By doing that, I cat...

Many thanks to Jodie  for sharing these tips with us today. Have you finished the first draft of your novel, and maybe gone through the whole thing again once or twice, revising as you go? At this stage, it’s a good idea to ask some trusted volunteer readers to read through your manuscript and offer suggestions. Then you can incorporate any ideas you like into your final draft, and then, ideally, hire a freelance editor to give it a final polish before you self-publish or send it off to literary agents. So how do you find these beta readers? Perhaps through a critique group, writing class or workshop, a book club, or readers or writers you’ve met through online networking. It’s best to avoid getting your parent, sibling, best friend or significant other to do beta reading, as they’re too close to you and may be afraid of offending you and jeopardizing your relationship. Three to five trusted readers would be optimal, as more could become overwhelming, and fewer may not give you...

It’s great to be back on Blood-Red Pencil as a guest. For the last year as a full-time novelist, I’ve been focused on writing, publishing, and promoting. When my fiction readers started commenting about how much they enjoyed my blog and my nonfiction articles, I took notice and added a few ideas to my to-do list. After mulling it around, I decided to combine the best of my nonfiction—including all the blogs I wrote about my journey to become a full-time novelist—into a book. I thought my readers would enjoy getting to know more about me, and authors would find the writing, editing, and promotion advice helpful and inspiring. Most of the blogs I wrote for this site while I was a member were included as well. The title was easy. I named the book after my blog and personal motto, Write First, Clean Later . I adopted the slogan in early 2008 when I was laid off my editing job with an educational publisher. Since then, I’ve penned five novels and published eight, in addition to writing hu...

In case some writers still don’t know this, Amazon is now offering publishers a 70% royalty (of list price) for Kindle book sales. The term publisher means anyone with a Digital Text Platform account, both individuals and small presses. (Most major publishers have an agency-model contract with Amazon, a whole different subject.) These are the conditions for qualifying for the 70% option: The author or publisher-supplied list price must be between $2.99 and $9.99. The list price must be at least 20% below the lowest list price for the physical book. The title must be made available for sale in all geographies for which the author or publisher has rights. The book must be offered at or below price parity with competition, including physical book prices. The 70% royalty option is currently only available for books sold to United States customers. There’s a lot of speculation about why Amazon is doing this, including the twisted notion that Amazon is out to destroy the traditional publis...

A recent post on an author forum caught my attention and generated many comments from other writers as well. Here’s the post: I am so pissed off right now. I spent $500 on an editor and caught errors. In the past I had edited my stories and then published them, but I kept hearing how good it is to have an editor and thought I would save some editing time. The problem? It's not the first time it's happened. I bartered services with two other people (who supposedly were good at editing) and had the same thing happen. It's just this time around, I thought if I paid a professional, then I would get better service, you know? Does anyone else have similar experiences, do you have a good editor who catches everything, or do you do fine on your own? Editors are not perfect, and no single editor can catch everything in an 80,000-word document. Which is why books need to go through an editing/proofreading process that involves many reads. What was most interesting to me was in th...

A prolific reader (and book reviewer) I know posted this advice in a discussion forum. If you’re working on a novel, it’s worth considering. 1. Don't give me time shifts or reverse time chapters unless you clearly indicate what you are doing and the purpose is absolutely necessary to make your story work. 2. No backstory after chapter one . If it's that important, you should have written the earlier book instead. 3. Don't assume I have read all your previous books, but don't fully include them in the current book unless relevant. 4. Refrain from obscure references outside the current book. No, I don't recall what painting is hanging on the far west wall in the room of the Louvre just beyond where the Mona Lisa is displayed, and frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. 5. Don't start multiple stories in the first 50 pages with the vague promise that they will all be resolved by the end of the book. Life occurs in sequence, not parallel. 6. Give y...

Commas are the single worst thing about being an editor. How can such a tiny little piece of punctuation cause so much time-sucking anguish? The rules are both inflexible and squishy at the same time.  Rule One: Two independent clauses separated by a conjunction need a comma. So the following sentence (with two subjects: he and it) is punctuated correctly with a comma.  He started the car, and it made a noise.   This next sentence (with only one subject: he) is also punctuated correctly without a comma.  He started the car and drove around town for a few hours but soon got bored and went home to clean out the garage and mow the lawn.   This drives writers crazy because these examples make no visual or auditory sense. Nobody wants a comma in the first example, and everybody wants to put a comma between “hours” and “but” in the second example.  Here’s the squishy part. Technically, the comma in the second example isn’t necessary, but many editors and publis...