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Choose Your Challenge Writers come up with many ways to establish the characters in their stories, especially the main character: character interviews, worst fear, early childhood, habits good and bad, etc. What readers want is action.The easiest way to reconcile your wealth of knowledge about your character and engaging readers in the story is…
The Secret Sauce of Fellow Writers Fellow writers provide a rich source of knowledge. You can use this knowledge to expand yours. From writing groups to indie author idea exchanges you can build your personal knowledge base on writing and publishing skills. New writers, especially, can fall into the trap of spending hundreds and sometimes…
Domestic Details Setting is important in any story. In historical novels, setting details give the reader a sense of what is around the characters. Without setting the characters are “floating in space” with nothing to ground them to surroundings. In the video of the mosaic discovery, the details of vibrancy and varied images are a…
L—d! said my mother, what is all this story about? The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman Laurence Sterne When readers begin your story, they want to know certain elements, and very soon. Gone are the days when the scenic, lingering beginning of Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native will draw in a…
Start Your Launch Plan Early Don’t wait until you novel is finished before starting to plan your book launch. A successful book launch contains many activities, and they need to be planned well in advance. New novelists need to start planning when they are about half-way through the story. Yep, the mid-point of your story…
Thank you to all The Used Virgin readers This morning I woke up to this notice in my email. I was surprised and thrilled. What a great way to begin Spring. I am especially grateful to readers because the book reached this level without advertising. That means, you, the reader, found it on Amazon and…
Celebrate Electronic Reading Smashwords presents Read an E-Book Week, March 5 – 11, 2017. The Used Virgin is just one book among thousands participating. Grab your free copy and join in the celebration. Mark Coker, Smashwords founder, interviews the Read an E-Book Week creator Rita Toews. For one week each year, Rita Toews, 61, a soft-spoken…
You Want Readers, Tell Them About Your Books When readers see your header on your website or on social media like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or anywhere else, do they know your genre right away? If you don’t tell them, they won’t know. They’re not going to scroll down your page or your social media posts…
Start Now to Gain Your Promotion Skills If you are starting a new novel and you think your fabulous, creative, innovative, engaging, exciting story will sell itself. Welcome to reality. It won’t sell itself. You may dream of people reading your book and sharing their enjoyment with others. Before that happens, readers need to know…
Research Trip: Plan for No Plan My day job is ghostwriting. My current project is a thriller. The culmination of the story takes place at Chichen Itza on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. Pictures, Google Maps, and other resources cannot replace the experience of being on site. The author had personal reasons for visiting over and above…
