Regency romance, romantic mysteries, & writing tips too.
In a recent writers’ group meeting, we talked about short stories and novellas. Several authors in the group regularly write and publish short fiction. Most published just one story a month, but several published more. The most prolific author published eight short stories each month (!), while publishing a new novel every six months. But… … Read more
“Who’s doing NaNoWriMo this year?” (A question at our writers’ group meeting.) It’s that time of year again. November and NaNoWriMo loom large. Will you participate? BTW: no matter when you’re reading this, you can use these tips to improve your fiction… Whether you’re joining in or not, if you’re an author, you worry about … Read more
At a recent writers’ group meeting, we discussed how to write fiction that readers love and remember. The discussion started when one author said: “Last week I caught up on my reading. I read four (genre) novels. After I finished them, I struggled to remember the characters. And the plots.” (I won’t mention which genre … Read more
When you’re writing a novel, do you begin at the beginning? We discussed our favorite strategies for starting a novel at a recent writers’ group meeting. Most authors in the group said they write chronologically: they began at the beginning and write to the end. Several authors however wrote according to their inspiration. “Stepping stones,” … Read more
In our latest writers’ group meeting, we talked about writing fiction and character creation and development. We’re back to our regular meetings, thank heavens. Sadly, our group’s been decimated, but we’ll build it up again. Start with plot or characters? That’s a topic which never gets old because of the two groups of fiction authors. … Read more
One of the biggest challenges in writing fiction is finding truly good ideas. We discussed finding great ideas in a recent writers’ group meeting. Several authors maintained that the perfect idea hit them after they’d started writing about a character who intrigued them. Some authors relied on inspiration and others said that they had too … Read more