by Angela Ackerman A friend of mine, the talented YA author Martina Boone, debuted last year with Compulsion, a southern gothic mystery romance novel showcasing a protagonist with the most unique and amazing talent: she is a finder of lost things. For her, this inherited talent (sometimes a curse, sometimes a boon), acts a compulsion--when […]

Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy In real life, being judgmental might cause a few problems, but in fiction, it's something every character should aspire to. How characters--especially the point of view characters--judge the world around them shows readers what that world is like and how it works (and even non-genre writers need to world build, it's just […]

Kait Nolan Summertiiiiiiiiime, and the livin' is easy... Summer is the season of lazy days, naps, vacations, and endless stretches of time. The perfect opportunity to catch up on your TBR pile. You sit down with the latest Nora Roberts, only to have to put it down again to take the kids to their latest […]

Bayard & Holmes ~ Jay Holmes In our last Writing Spies article, we talked about bugging rooms.* But what if our characters need to know if a room is already bugged?  First, consider the character being bugged and the character or organization doing the bugging. Some characters are going to expect surveillance. For example, Mafiosos […]

Les Edgerton The writer who can master the art and craft of defining their characters by their actions is going to be the author whose work gets read. By lots and lots of folks… Enough, hopefully, that you’ll never again have to say to someone about the novel you’ve written that it’s “only available in […]