Your Novel Outline Can Make You Invincible For a writer, nothing feels better than writing The End when your novel is finished. Beginning novelists can flounder around trying to make the first novel work. An outline can keep your story on track and make all the difference when it comes to writing your entire novel…
Write Time Blog
How To Make Each Scene Count in Your Story
Scene Checklists Scenes are the building blocks of your story. Each scene moves the story forward. As you build your story alternate between action and reaction. When you go through the first edits of your story make certain that all scene components are in each scene. You’ll take your reader by the hand to lead…
Great Way to Give Out Free Books
Create and Share Free Books for Author Promotion Hook potential readers with a free book giveaway. Book Funnel stores PDF, .epub, and .mobi files so they can read your book in their format of choice. Scrivener users can compile a manuscript to each of these formats. Once you have created the files, simply upload each file…
How to Write A Scene for Reader Engagement
Start Late, End Early Scenes are the building blocks of your story. The purpose of each scene is to move the reader along in the story. You can help your reader experience immediacy by plunging them headlong into your story. Begin At the Latest Possible Moment Begin your scene with action. Plunge your reader into…
Historical Story Setting: Discovering Ostia and Portus
A Setting in Time At the time of Argolicus Rome was neither the capital city of Italy nor the center of the Roman Empire. King Theoderic, ruled Italy from the north of Italy in Ravenna and the Roman Empire was centered in Constantinople. In The Roman Heir Argolicus and Nikolaos leave Rome to begin his…
Work With Your Editors
A Simple Way to Work with Editors Many writers dread the editing process, especially when it comes to recommendations for rewrites. David Amerland calls editing brain-squeezing. I agree. For every suggestion an editor makes you have to agree, disagree, or partially agree. Then if you agree, it’s time to rethink that portion of the manuscript and…
Characters Don’t Speak in Semicolons
Dialogue and Narrative Grammar is essential to good storytelling; it keeps the reader from getting lost. When writing narrative good grammar is essential. But when your characters speak, they talk like human beings. People don’t speak in semicolons and neither should your characters. Robert Harris wrote a trilogy about the great legal orator Cicero: Imperium, Lustrum,…
The Second Argolicus Mystery
The Peach Widow Get your copy of The Peach Widow. After Rome, before the Middle Ages, Italy belonged to the Ostrogoths. A distressed widow. Greedy brothers. A huge farm dog. Argolicus unravels the threads. Argolicus and Nikolaos Visit A Farm When Argolicus, is asked by his mother to counsel a grieving widow on the laws…
Two New Stories in the Works
Editing & Writing I’ll be publishing The Peach Widow soon. One editor was away and is now back working on the second half of the story. In one way, I’m enjoying the time to work on suggested edits before the next round appears. Rephrasing, augmenting, and rewriting is tedious work for me so I am…
Daily Writing Word Count
How Many Words Should I Write a Day? rWord count varies per writing session varies from writer to writer. The most important aspect of your word count goal is to set a reasonable target on a daily basis. Some days you may reach your goal, some days you may not reach your goal, and–the best…