By Laura Drake Do you remember the comedian Jonathan Winters?  I heard a story once that he had a hard time distinguishing his persona from that of his characters, to the point that he descended into an almost multiple-personality state periodically.  I got curious and looked it up on Snopes to see if it was […]

Sharla Rae An author on deadline will tell you that the old saying “Time is Money” is just as true with writing as it is with any other business.  Have you ever spent hours crafting a perfect description only to realize it breaks up the action? Did you delete it and then discover a chapter or […]

By Sharla RaeOne of the things we discussed in our critique last week was all writers’ tendency to repeat certain words and phrases. “Echoes” is a term I’ve heard applied to frequently repeated words. Read your chapter out loud, and that’s exactly what they sound like. Common Causes of Echoes: Laura, one of my critique […]

by Laura Drake At Stephen King’s suggestion (no, he’s not a personal friend – it’s in his book, On Writing), I created a file on my computer entitled “Toolbox”.  In it, I keep my tools for writing.  One section is for websites that come in handy for reading or writing.  I’ll share the best with […]

Sharla Rae  For the writer who enjoys history, researching is often the best part of writing a historical novel. Even so, deciding where to start can be mind-boggling.  Why Research? So Where Does the Research Start? To keep things simple, think of researching as the construction of a house from the ground up.  The Foundation: […]