How does your protagonist respond to gifts? If your book is a romance, you probably have a scene where the female protagonist receives a gift. How do you show her surprise, her shyness, her faking that she likes it, or her joy because it’s perfect? In a mystery or a thriller, does the criminal give […]
Weather in Fiction Can Create Sensory Disadvantage
One of my Facebook friends,Cynthia Helen Beecher read my post, “Using Fog in Writing” and told me about Oregon author, James Boyle, who had a reading in Healdsburg recently. Fog is one of the characters in his trilogy. I became a FB friend with him and in our chat, he said “Fog is a nice […]
The Romance Category in Written Across the Genres
In previous posts, I gave examples of Mainstream Fiction short stories published in my anthology, Written Across the Genres. The Romance Section features two short stories, three poems, and an excerpt from Sharon Burgess’ novel, Simply Irresistible, which she published on July 11, 2014. It is available on Amazon or it can be ordered at […]
Story Prompt for Writers
Are you trying to think of something to write? Use the picture and write answers to the following questions to prompt your muse. Who are they? Where are they? Where are they going? Are they related? What does the man want? What is his goal? What does the boy want? What is stopping both of […]
Food in Writing
What does your story’s characters eat? Today at Jessica Barksdale’s retreat, she suggested we write about food for 20 minutes. In Norman in the Painting, Jill wants to stall before going to her sister’s house. Viv, who has had too much to drink, tells Jill that the body of her colleague was found by the […]
The Use of Diary Entries in a Short Story
Paula Chinick, who wrote a mainstream short story called “Hidden Discovery” in my anthology, Written Across the Genres, used diary entries between narrative paragraphs. Jean, the protagonist, talks in first person about finding her mother’s diary after she died. “I found it a few months ago while forced to go through her things alone. Alone, […]
Mainstream Fiction
The first short story in Written Across the Genres, my anthology available on Amazon, is called “Valuable” by Arleen Eagling. Karen, the protagonist is a widow who is in a tool store where she brings “a starter set of six hand-forged chisels of different sizes, each slipped into separate leather pockets they’d lived in for […]