In previous posts I’ve shared here about how reading newspaper articles has triggered a story idea. This happens a lot for my mystery and suspense novels, especially, One Small Victory and Boxes for Beds , and even some of the story lines for the Seasons Mystery Series. Many writers, if not most, get story ideas from just such experiences, especially those who write mysteries. If we run across an article about an unsolved crime, our writerly minds may latch on to that story and start trying to figure out a way to ferret out a solution. Topics for a story also come to us out of current events, as Dani Greer pointed out in her post last week I can Use This.. .about her Kindle Vella series. However, for other novels, we may draw directly from our experiences or those of people we know. For example, the story idea for my women's novel Play it Again, Sam came from a dreadful experience that a good friend lived through. She called me up one day to tell me that her husband of over twe...

This month we’re posting about our pet peeves here at the Blood-Red Pencil. Previously I’ve shared some of the craft issues I see repeatedly in some published books that bother me as a reader, and I like to think of them as a mishap. Those same craft issues also bother me as an editor, especially if I'm working with a new client who decides that just because they see it in already published books that must mean it’s okay. It's not okay. We owe it to readers to give them our best, and our best doesn't include weak or ordinary writing. In a second or third draft of a story we can take an ordinary turn of phrase and make it extraordinary. Here are just a few little things that could be changed to improve a narrative. They're ones that jar me every time I read them in a novel and prompt me to consciously pay attention to avoid them while writing: Shrugging shoulders . Very few of us ever shrug anything other than a shoulder, so why not just write "shrugged." Or ...

The Blood-Red Pencil Editors are also published authors. Check out some of our latest and most popular releases! Genres include Mystery, Thriller, Fantasy, Romance, Memoir, and books to help you with your writing craft.   Linda Lane Tormented Tango Family must be protected at all costs. Even if it means killing them. Former prosecutor Aidan Wolf runs a small legal aid office. Defense lawyer Jenna Jacobs rarely loses a case, but she lost Aidan Wolf. District Attorney Wilson Howell, wife Becca, and their two teenagers live in what he believes is near-perfect bliss. And then…  Buy Here Linda Lane The Accounting What if the person who should love you the most hurts you the worst?  A powerful story of families that you won’t soon forget. Woven through its pages, The Accounting shares within its carefully crafted plot and well-defined characters events that will forever change the lives of four Kohler households. Family dynamics expose their weaknesses and reveal their ...

To help us improve our craft of writing, we’ve all taken classes. Read many articles on the rules of grammar and writing. Listened to members of a critique group talk about writing rules. Which ones should we follow? What advice should we take to heart, or more precisely to keyboard? Answer: Take what works for you and discard the rest. Nothing is cast in stone. My writing workshops all begin with the disclaimer that I don’t know everything, and nothing that will be suggested is a “must.”  Again, take what works for you and discard the rest. That goes for this blog post, too.

The title for this post that first came to mind when I decided on a topic was "Writer Beware." Then after thinking about it for a bit, I realized that awareness of simple mistakes we all make at one time or another was more apt.  Ever since a writer friend posted a comment on Twitter that maybe characters in our stories don’t need to nod all the time I’ve become super-sensitive to that movement. In a book I’m currently reading there’s a lot of nodding going on, and I have to wonder if I would’ve noticed that before the Twitter posting. In reply to his tweet I commented that when we have a character nod, we don't have to say “nodded his or her head,” pointing out that there really isn’t another part of the body that one would nod. Of course, if we write sci-fi and have an alien species without a head, that character might nod an elbow or a knee, but for those of us who people our books with humans, we do know what part of the body is used for nodding. Many of the other ...

Here on the Blood-Red Pencil blog we've looked at marketing from a lot of different angles. There are professionals whom we can hire to help us promote our books, and that's probably the easiest way if we have the budget for that. Or, if we're published with a major publishing house, and they simply adore our books, they'll often have a marketing plan for it. For the rest of us who are published by smaller houses, or totally self-published, the challenges are greater, and we have to find creative ways to market without becoming a pain in someone's inbox. We also have to balance writing time with marketing time. Something that's not always easy to do. This is where AI can be a game-changer for authors  who don't want to spend all their precious writing time doing marketing and promotion. Having been in this publishing game for more years than I'd like to publicly admit, I've seen trends in promoting wax and wane. When my first books were published by ...

A friend on Twitter recently commented about how excited she was about her first sale of a short story, and that reminded me of the thrill I had at my first major sale. I'd been writing for a couple of newspapers already, but when Lady's Circle published "A String of Pearls" and sent me a check for a whopping $125, I felt like I'd finally made it to the big time. One of my newspaper gigs at that time was penning a weekly humor column, and of course, I had to write about the experience. The following is just a bit of that nonsense ..er, week's offering.  When I sold my first short story to a major magazine my family joined me in the excitement, and we were all happily playing Howard Hughes around here for a while. My husband started planning his retirement. The kids started picking out houses in the country. And I had visions of never having to look at another price tag again before buying a pair of jeans.  Meanwhile I had not even cashed the check yet. I was a...

Note: Contest 1 closes midnight March 9th . Contest 2 closes on March 17th. Scroll down for more details. Many writers don't enjoy the marketing and promoting side of the business of being an author. Myself, included. Those first steps in the overall process - the writing - creating characters - coming up with a plot - finding the perfect setting - and then ending up with a finished novel - are the most satisfying. As Neil Gaiman, who writes the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline , and The Graveyard Book  says, “Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters.” Still, we have to promote if we want our books to rise in the rankings at Amazon - the giant retailer that controls so much when it comes to book sales and a force in the business that we can't ignore. There are millions and millions of books listed on Amazon and where does ours land in that mix? Unless an author i...

Recently I listened to a short story, Slingshot by Souvankham Thammavongsa , being read on the podcast Selected Shorts too hot for Radio . The story centers around a 70-year-old woman who meets a 32-year-old man, her neighbor, Richard, and they start a short, but intense, relationship. The woman has been a widow for 30 years and in her words, “I hadn't had sex for such a long time that I could consider myself a virgin. I couldn't remember how it all happens."  That story, originally published in Harper's magazine in 2018 , made me wonder how many other stories are now being written about older characters being in love and having sex. That's not something we tend to acknowledge very often. It's as if we don't think older people have those desires. But they do. Recent studies, such as this one in Prevention Magazine , indicate that people well into their 80s and 90s still want romance and physical intimacy. "Sex isn't like a carton of milk that goes ...

 “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” Maya Angelou That quote from the talented poet, performer, and activist who passed from this life in 2014 really resonates with me, as I’ve long believed that we have to keep the creative juices flowing. It's definitely not good for any kind of productivity with our work if we stagnate. What we do to prime the pump, so to speak, can take many forms. If you’re a writer, write That seems like a non-starter for writers. That's what we do, right? But too often we get distracted by social media, things life throws at us, or an impulse to play a game instead of getting into the groove. What we need to be doing is writing first.  As the wonderful writer Anne Lamott says, “How to write: Butt in chair. Start each day anywhere. Let yourself do it badly. … Get butt back in chair.” Back when I was a lot more prolific as a writer, before Ramsay Hunt Syndrome decided to cozy up to me and bring along the gift of optic ner...

A few years ago we had guest posts from humorist, Slim Randles, who created this fictional group of guys who hang out at the Mule Barn Truck Stop and trade yarns - as in story not thread. One of those men, Dudley, has been writing a book for years now and never quite seems to get it right. Sharing Dud's attempts to finish, and maybe even get his book published, has always been a nice comedic relief, and goodness knows we all need some comedic relief now and then. Slim Randles has become a good friend through the years that he has shared his weekly columns with me. First when I was Managing Editor of WinnsboroToday.com, an online community magazine that ran for about seven years. After it ceased publication, Slim generously allowed me to continue to use his columns on my blog and here at BRP. The column is syndicated in several hundred newspapers across the United States, and a collection of the columns became his book Home Country . Now, here's the latest from Dud and his wr...