Our guest Terri Osburn, author of Meant to Be,  has a wealth of questions to help you turn flat characters into characters that keep your readers turning pages. by Terri Osburn I've been judging a lot of contest entries lately, which led me to the topic for this blog. After reading the entire entry, I […]

And now, for the winner of last Friday's THE TRICKY PART contest: Congratulations to Evelyn Berry, the winner of Laurie Schnebly Campbell's writing class. Evelyn, you can contact Laurie directly about your class. Today we welcome guest blogger Marcy Kennedy, author of Strong Female Characters, with advice for all of you who blog--or are thinking […]

Congratulations to Ella Quinn, the winner of Debbie Herbert's contest last week. Ella, you can contact Debbie via her website. You're lucky to be one of the first to read her debut book, Siren’s Secret! And the winner of Chuck Sambuchino's contest is Judi Moreo. We'll let Chuck know the snail mail address on your […]

“The Tricky Part” of writing is different for every author, but hardly anyone is good at both dialogue & description. Laurie Schnebly Campbell talks about the skills required for each, and how to discover where your strengths lie. And, did we mention that there is a prize for a lucky commenter? That contest closes Thursday […]

By Chuck Sambuchino One of the most common reasons why agents and editors stop reading sample pages is simply that the story starts too slow. Gone are the days when a book could “get good on page 12.” We also can no longer compare our writing to classic works or even books written 30 years […]