In Karl Iglesias’ book, Writing Emotional Impact, he suggests using paradoxes to create complex and fascinating characters. Paradoxes in characters are conflicting traits, contradictions within themselves. For example a character wants to find true love, yet is suspicious of men. A mother might plan to retire in Hawaii, the goal of her life, but her […]
Interview with Jordan Bernal
Jordan Bernal is president of The California Writers Club, Tri-Valley Writers Chapter. She has won awards for her recently published novel, The Keepers of Eire, and has several stories and poems in various publications. In my anthology, Written Across the Genres, Jordan has an essay titled “Reflections”, a poem called “Dreams”, and a novel excerpt […]
The Keepers of Eire by Jordan Bernal
The Keepers of Eire is a dragon fantasy set in present day. Bernal’s book won the 2014 Global EBook Gold Award.She conducted research in Ireland and Scotland for this first in a series novel and soon after it was published, she returned to the British Isles to do research for the second book. The main […]
Anne McCaffrey Quote for Writers
Anne McCaffrey said, “Tell me a story! Because without a story, you are merely using words to prove you can string them together in logical sentences.” Wikipedia states, “Anne Inez McCaffrey was an American-born Irish writer, best known for the Dragonriders of Pern science fiction series. How many of you have read McCaffrey’s books?
Scrivener for Pantsers and Plotters?
As we organized the stories in my anthology, Written Across the Genres, my great assistant, Linda Todd, used Scrivener. I bought a copy, took a tutorial, and realized there are several other tutorials available. How to use Scrivener looked manageable as I watched the video, but I’ve procrastinated because of the time involved with the […]
Stacey Gustafson’s Book ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
If you are familiar with Stacey Gustafson’s humorous writing or have bought her book on Amazon, she would benefit from reviews made specifically tomorrow, September 8th, in the morning. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? is available in paperback and on Kindle. Her short stories have appeared in seven books in the NOT YOUR MOTHER’S BOOK series, […]
The Earthquakes in the Protagonist’s Ordinary World
Lisa Cron in Wired for Story on page 130, uses the analogy of earthquake fissures that lead to the big one in the life of the protagonist. The “first hairline crack and its resulting offshoots are like fault lines, running through the center of the protagonist’s world, undermining everything. As with an earthquake, the cracks […]