How Your Characters’ Needs Can Make Them More Human
I opened the revisions file from my editor on my latest work in progress and was surprised by the number one item on her list. “The protagonist is launching a business!” she wrote. “Why isn’t she working on her website, having business cards made, handing out flyers—anything?” I was slightly insulted. Of course, my character […]
Watching the Clock: Foolproof Methods for Keeping Track of Time in Your Writing
Whether your manuscript is an epic saga or spans the length of an hour, it’s easy to get lost in your own world and lose track of time. You enter the flow excited, sunlight shining through the window, and emerge hours later, exhausted and in the dark. In the real world, cues like the change […]
Broaden Your Book’s Horizons with IAM’s Guide to Convincing Bilingual Characters
So you want to include a character in your story that’s part of a culture you’re unfamiliar with or who knows a language you cannot speak. From a diversity standpoint, it’s an important endeavor. But what can you do as a writer to ensure that it’s a realistic portrayal that enriches the narrative instead of […]
Food for Thought
Add Flavor to Your Fiction with These Techniques for Writing about Food Jenn Mitchell Adam and Eve had their fateful apple. Tales of the Old West had chuck wagons. The Jetsons had food pellets. No matter what genre you’re writing in, if your story contains living beings and plays out over more than a day […]
Travel the World with the World Wide Web: Research Tips for Writing about Real Places
Angie Martin When it comes to choosing a location for a novel, short story, or script, many authors stick with what they know. Stephen King’s novels typically stay in Maine. Hailing from Kansas City, Missouri, Gillian Flynn’s three novels take place in the rural Midwest. Anne Rice is well known for her exotic paranormal tales, […]
From the Mouths of Babes: How to Write Kids Dialogue
Let’s face it: Kids are a lot of work. No one would argue that point in the real world—no one who’s spent time around them, anyhow. And little ones can be just as much of a handful on the page. Especially when it comes to dialogue, making young characters believable can leave a thin margin […]
Why Texas Might Be the Perfect Setting for Your Next Book
Texas: It Really Is Like a Whole Other Country When you think of Texas, a few images might come to mind: cowboys, hot prairies with dusty tumbleweeds, herds of cattle, chuck wagons, horses everywhere, and maybe the Alamo. As with every American state, these are typical stereotypes with roots in reality. And sure, you’ll find […]
Does Your Writing Suffer from the ‘Wandering Body Part’ Problem?
“Your eyes touch me physically.” —“The Warrior,” performed by Scandal, written by Holly Knight and Nick Gilder Oh, the amazing wandering body parts. The absolute horror inflicted upon readers as eyes fly, hands inch around, and hearts roam the world. The term “wandering body parts” refers to the sentences in which body parts seem to […]
It’s a Cinch: The Fact and Fiction of Corsets
Valerie Steel begins her study The Corset: A Cultural History claiming, “The corset is probably the most controversial garment in the entire history of fashion.” Considering its reputation as oppressive, torturous, and downright dangerous, it’s hard to argue. High time, then, we unknotted fact from fiction when it comes to this complex garment. As with […]
Need-To-Know Details to Write Criminal Justice By the Books
In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime; and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.—Law & Order. In a gamut of literary genres including Mystery, Police Procedural, Legal Thriller, and Prison Literature, the readers are represented by […]