I’ve learned over the years that I work best with deadlines.
Knowing that about myself, I figure that if I announce the book, I’ll have to finish it!
I made this poster to motivate myself and to keep everyone informed. I hope you’ll be as excited as I am…
Tag: Writing
Spotlight: “A Room in Blake’s Folly” by @JArleneCuliner
Introducing J. Arlene Culiner and her newest story. Blake’s is a historical romance and sounds utterly delightful. There’s an excerpt for you to sink your teeth into, and if that doesn’t induce you to buy the book, nothing will!
#WritingTips – He said, she said: Revisiting #DialogueTags
I’m revisiting Dialogue Tags. What are they?
If my book characters say something, how will readers know who spoke?
How will they know who said what when they can’t physically see or hear the characters?
Through dialogue tags, that’s how. Dialogue tags are phrases or sentences that tie or tag a character to a particular dialogue.
Consider this conversation (Example A):
‘What on earth are you doing?’
‘How is it any of your bloody business what I do?’
‘It is my bloody business because this is my bloody house!’
Blast from the past: Meet Mita from “Take One Fake Fiancé” – the book is featured on @Author_Devika’s blog
Introducing Mita – the spirited female lead in Reet Singh’s “Take One Fake Fiancé”
‘I won’t do it, Mama.’ Mita glared at her mother through eyes as black as thunder clouds. ‘You’ll have to be the one to tell Uncle Raja. I refuse to speak to your interfering brother.’
She fled the room before her mother could get a word in, and left behind a faint bouquet of jasmine, a strong whiff of displeasure, and a distraught mother. The front door banged loudly, its old timber creaking in protest at such ill-treatment and Radhika sank into the nearest chair.
Would her only child shun marriage forever? It wasn’t fair to blame Mita’s father, Deepak, but if he…
Word counts that work
This week I’m going to talk about word counts and what they could mean to you as a reader and as a writer.
What word count can mean to a reader:
How long is this story? Do I really want to read such a short/long story? Some like it long – they feel cheated by shorts and novellas; others want to get through a book in one night, or on the train ride home, so they shudder at epic word counts.
For authors, though, word counts can mean two things:
Writers’ Ten Commandments
This week, suspense author Ravi Bedi visits my blog to talk about things that should be included in the list of a writer’s TEN Commandments:
Semicolons, Em-dashes, and Ellipses
This week I’m going to talk about some interesting punctuation marks that you should certainly try in your writing.
First, I’m going to define what a clause is, because we’ll be talking about it a lot in the following section.
A clause is a group of words – it forms part of a sentence AND contains a subject and a verb.
For example: Tanay stepped into the en-suite bathroom and began to look for a shaving kit.
Point of View in story-telling
When it refers to real life, a Point of View is the “position from which something is viewed”. In story-telling, it translates into “who is telling the story?”Whose viewpoint is it? How much of it is biased because it is only one point of view? How much can a reader believe if it is coming from one ‘position’ only?Let me try and answer these questions.
Midpoints that impel the story onwards
This week I’m going to talk about how to write a midpoint that keeps the reader turning the pages.As the word suggests, the midpoint of a story comes right at the center of it.How should it be written?Why should we care?Regardless of what genre we write, the first quarter of the story is invariably where the characters are introduced to the reader and where the events that complicate the main characters’ lives take place.This part is the set-up to the second quarter of the story which highlights how the characters react to the life-altering events (job offer, job loss, tragedy, natural disaster, unexpected inheritance) that beset them.Their reactions drive the story forward – if they don’t react, there will be no story.
Writing Love Scenes
When there’s a romance brewing between two characters in a story, even in genres other than romantic fiction, readers will want the characters to, at the very least, kiss.
When I’m reading, I know that I always want that to happen – and I feel let down when a story with a promising slow-sizzle ends without a physically sensual moment. I’m sure the protagonists feel cheated too.