Every writer dreams of being in The Zone - that magical place where words and ideas flow. There's a reason it's a dream because for many of us (myself most definitely included), our visits there are too few and far too fleeting. Here are ten signs that you too, my sister (or brother), are most assuredly not in The Zone: 10. Just one more game of Solitaire (or Free cell or Angry Birds or...). Just one. Oops, where did that hour go? 9. Notice you've used the word 'pretty' twice. Not in the same paragraph; the same sentence . 8. (If you write mysteries) your sleuth is about to have his/her big 'aha' moment. This is when you realize there is no logical way they could have leaped to the solution. 7. Realize your fingers are cramping because they've been frozen over the keyboard for such a long time. 6. It's been so long since you've looked at your WIP that when you actually open up the document you have to spend  considerable time  re-re...

Continuing on with the theme of What's in a Name, today let's explore Blog Names. To attract readers, a blog name might contain some or all of these characteristics: 1. Be catchy  2. Be easy to remember 3. Convey at least a hint of the blog's purpose 4. Be part of the url  Let's examine three of my blogs to see how they stack up: Sweet Not Spicy ,  Make Mine Mystery  and  Spunky Senior Authors and Talents . I'll also indicate how I handled the placing of the names. (The Sweet Not Spicy blog header contains the name of the blog as part of the header.) Catchiness is somewhat subjective, but I personally like alliteration. I've used it in Sweet Not Spicy and Make Mine Mystery  as one way to make the names seem catchy. Since the names are short, they should be easy enough to remember.  (You can't tell here, but the Make Mine Mystery blog name is in Blogger's white font interposed over the header picture, and not part of the picture itse...

No, I don’t mean that tight feeling in your shoulders when you’ve been sitting at the computer too long! In writing, TENSE shows the time of a verb’s action. The following are the simple tenses we commonly use: • Action occurring now is PRESENT TENSE. She understands the problem . • Action that occurred before now is PAST TENSE. She understood the problem . • Action likely to occur in after now is FUTURE TENSE. She will understand the problem . Then, we get into somewhat more complicated versions. By adding a “to be” verb, we create a PERFECT TENSE. (That doesn’t mean it’s perfect to use all the time though.) • PRESENT PERFECT refers to completed actions whose effects are still relevant. I am walking that trail today. • PAST PERFECT: I had walked that trail last week.  • FUTURE PERFECT: I will have walked that trail many times before I grow old.  The tricky part is knowing which tense to use when, and when to limit the “perfects.” As authors, when we begin a sto...

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...

When not writing, Maryann likes to play on stage.  Here she is as Mildred in "Squabbles." Today we welcome one of our own for an interview. Maryann Miller has a new book out from Five Star Cengage/Gale, the second in her police procedural series set in Dallas, Texas. Stalking Season was r eleased December 19th, 2012. The underlying ground in the series explores issues involving racism, rooted in the partnership between the two female police detectives, one white and one black. Here’s a brief synopsis: In this second book of  The Seasons series, homicide detective, Sarah Kingsly, and her partner, Angel Johnson, are pitted against an uncanny killer while still struggling to feel like real partners. Neither wanted the pairing in the first place, and it isn't getting any better. A young girl is killed in a cheap motel, and when her identity is discovered, an influential Dallas businessman brings the heat down on the department. It isn't easy to work un...

How many ways can you hang a page? Or a scene? Or a chapter? Page hangers are a relic of the Victorian three-deck novel that was delivered in monthly installments. Each installment ended with a little advertisement for the next one. How ever would our hero escape from that flooded cellar and those hungry red-eyed rats? Yet even today they are a fixture in best-selling suspense novels. Mistresses of melodrama Kathy Reichs and Patricia Cornwell use so many page hangers - around three per scene - that they must pluck them out of a database. Not every novel calls for hangers, of course, but the ploy is useful when the scene shifts into a different point of view or sub plot. It buys the author time. We’ll put up with a lot of digression if we're sure that the mystery posed by the page hanger will soon be resolved.  Here are seven proven page hangers and how to use them in your story to create suspense. 1. The seamless transition This is not so much a hanger as a link betwe...

Ideally, a novelist’s submission package is comprised of three elements: the query, the synopsis, and the sample pages. This post is not intended to help you write them. I’ll sprinkle in a few links from the BRP team to help with that. This is to help you understand how they work together to either disappoint or entice an agent. Think these materials are too brief to fairly represent your project? Read on. You may be surprised how revealing they can be. Let’s look at each aspect of the package in terms of its function. Source: Flickr.com Query: The Hook The query is the bedrock of the submission package. It may be all an agent ever sees, since many request a query only. Rest assured that if written well, it is enough to earn an invitation to send more. In just a few paragraphs, this page suggests whether you are ready to make the transition from writer to published author. Its opening is your pitch, one or two concise, cogent paragraphs meant to align us with your protago...

Genre is the promise you make to your reader to give them the kind of story they want without annoying them by giving them information they don’t want. So what happens when your premise, that brilliant story seed that came to you in a dream or while pacing your kitchen at 3:00 a.m. on a sleepless night, doesn’t fit neatly into one of those broad categories? What if the term genre makes you feel slightly nauseated or makes you fear you’ll have to kill too many darlings?  The answer lies in the story skeleton you select and how you layer the conflicts. Let’s say you have a brilliant story idea about a scientist named Dick trying to win the heart of Sally, the girl of his dreams. Meanwhile, Jane asks him to solve the problem of a meteor streaking toward earth. In addition, Dick really hates Ted because Ted is eager to replace him as head of the space defense department. You want to cram all of this into one story. But what kind of story is it?  That depends on h...

Google Images After you’ve thought about the qualities of your potential readers , you might want to stake out some of them before you begin to write for them. Here are some more ideas that might help you find out what your readers care about.   Go out to coffee with a friend or acquaintance who typifies your ideal reader, and have an in-depth conversation with them about the subject of your writing. Ask them what they care about, in terms of your topic. What questions does he or she have? Does he or she have any objections to your position? What problems do they have that your writings might solve for them?   A good idea is to record these conversations (with their permission, of course.) Or you might want to take surveys of your potential readership.   If you have an email distribution list, or a group of friends on a social networking site, or have joined clubs or other interest groups, ask these same kinds of questions of them. Social networking sites...

Google Images Last month I wrote about why it’s a good idea to write for your readers , not just for yourself. But how do you know who your readers will be? To figure out who is most likely to be interested in your subject, and who you want to be interested in your subject, you need to ask yourself some categorization questions. These questions can range from general and broad to as detailed as you want. The two broadest and most general are: 1.   Gender.   Are your readers more likely to be men or women? There have been many things written about the differences in gender communication styles. 2.   Age.   Are your readers likely to be under thirty? Over fifty? Mid-life, seniors, Generation X, Y, or Z?   But don’t stop there. The more detailed you make the description of your ideal or most likely readers, the better you will be able to grab their attention. Here are some other categorizations you might want to ask yourself about the readers w...

Covers have been a recurring theme this month. I thought I'd share how my cover artist, Dave Fymbo,  and I worked to create the cover for Book 3 in my Pine Hills Police series, Saving Scott . I asked Dave to share his process, and this is what he said: I start by asking clients what the book is about, what the tone should be, and if they have any images or colors in mind. Then I'll do an initial exploration. I search for free images that would work as well as lay down some text options. Sometimes the right font is the design. But usually the hardest part is finding the right image. For the first round I send between 5 and 10 options. Then I strip away all the text and go round and round until the imagery is perfect. This often includes compositing multiple photos, adjusting colors and contrast, and lighting effects. (You'll notice he'd already inserted my name in these samples. That's because this is the 3rd book in my Pine Hill Police series, ...

HE SAID, SHE SAID Writing dialogue trips up the best of us, at one time or another. On the other hand, often comes the comment, “This author has a great ear for dialogue.” So how do we tame this beast and go from the former to the latter? A few tips will take us a long way here. 1. Formal and Stilted Dialogue, and everyone sounding the same. Often, without the tags, I cannot tell who’s talking, and I should be able to. For most new writers, this is almost a given, and I see all the time a variation of this: “My name is Bill. What is your name?” he asked. “My name is Theresa. Good to meet you, Bill,” she replied. Yep, this is an exaggerated example, and for comparison: “Name’s Bill,” he said, a grin spreading over his rugged face. “Yours?” “Theresa. I know you from somewhere?” I.e.—get something done in the dialogue with every spoken word as well. Dialogue should rarely be in complete sentences—we just don’t talk that way. Unless, of course,...

Kids love meeting authors, no doubt about it. That's great, because authors can serve as valuable tools for teachers by serving as exciting mentors for their language arts curriculum. But in today’s classrooms, shrinking budgets are making it more and more difficult for schools to bring authors on campus to meet and workshop with students. However, technologies like Skype are emerging as a bridge to help keep students and authors connected in the classroom. When I Skyped with second and third grade classrooms in New Hampshire last year, it was easy. Neither I nor the students had to stray far from our home bases. The students gathered in their classroom, and I sat down at my office computer. Although this was a first time experience for both the hosting teacher and me, we both managed to pull it off without a hitch. Today, I'll give a list of the tools that are needed by the hosting teacher. Get ready to write the following list down. You may be amazed at how simple it is...

In my previous installment , I posed two questions: (A) What is there about fantasy literature that elicits such enthusiasm among so many readers? and (B) What are the reasons underlying the corresponding critical contempt? I’ll be dealing at length with Question A in up-coming posts by way of exploring the challenges of writing fantasy from a practical perspective. For the moment, I’m going to focus on Question B: Why are so many mainstream writers, critics, and academics so hostile to the genre? Two key factors are involved in the answer: on the one hand, semantics; on the other, marketing pressures within the publishing industry during the genre’s infancy. In this month’s article, I propose to address the former factor, taking as my chapter and verse a quote from Shakespeare’s Juliet who asks plaintively, “What’s in a name?” ( Romeo and Juliet , II.ii.1-2) At the University of St. Andrews in 1938, J.R.R. Tolkien delivered a now-famous essay titled On Fairy Stories . In t...

An excellent interview with a young chiropractor who has developed a series of simple exercises any writer can use. Here's the fundamental exercise: Read more at mercola.com.

This month we’ve shared covers that inspire potential readers to open the books they enclose and peer into their pages. From Morgan Mandel’s discussion of StephenWalker’s cover designs to the reveal of Kathryn Craft’s fabulous cover for her debut novel, The Art of Falling , due out in January 2014, we have explored the vital role of covers in marketing books — that first impression we never get a second chance to make. However, February traditionally speaks of love rather than book covers. Television commercials tout gifts of flowers and chocolates for the object of one’s affections. And back when I was in elementary school, the Valentine’s Day party was one of those memorable traditions we looked forward to every year — but book covers? love? Am I digressing here? Or does a powerful connection exist between these seemingly unrelated topics? As the saying goes, a book should not be judged by its cover. This works both ways: a gorgeous, gripping, or intriguing cover does not guar...