Becca Puglisi As authors, we all know the importance of engaging our audience within a book’s first few pages. It’s called grabbing the reader: captivating them in a way that makes them want to stick with the story to its end. Michael Hauge prefers the term seducing: “Everybody likes to be seduced; it’s a gradual, […]

I do a lot of critiquing. As I get better at craft, I’m starting to catch the nuances of good writing; things beyond the basics of POV, show don’t tell, etc. They’re subtler and harder to spot, but I believe they can be the difference between a ‘good writer’ and a popular author. And yes, […]

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy Revisions are a part of writing, and as much as we wish they'd go smoothly, they don't always work out like we planned. Some manuscripts fight us and nothing we do makes them any better. When we run into such a troublesome beast, it helps to step back and figure out […]

Alex Bledsoe World building is a common concern among fantasy writers, since so much of what we do depends on the reader believing IN the setting. You can have the best story and great characters, and torpedo them all with an unconvincing and inconsistent setting. Of course, you can also go too far in the […]

I love fortune cookies. From cracking them open, to pulling out the slip of paper, to reading the fortune, to eating the sweet crunchy thing—I love everything about them. I always smile when I find saved fortunes (a recent "found" cache led to this post) whenever I go through an old purse or drawers in my […]