Those Important First Pages

Sometimes you set out to do a thing for one reason … only to find it was so much more than you ever imagined. More than you could have actually planned. In this case, I learned just how much value can be wrung out of focusing on the first chapter and how it relates to...

Short Saturday: Why I Stopped Reading Your Book

Like author Chuck Wendig, I’ve gotten a whole lot pickier about what I read and how much time I give it before I stop. “For one,” he says, “it’s time.” Work and time and personal responsibilities all intrude. But also, he says, “I’m like a stage magician where it’s...

Short Saturday: The Art of the (Fiction) Con

Here’s a great article from author Elizabeth Sims about internal dialogue. (In most cases I would call it inner monologue, but that’s neither here nor there; I’ve written about it before.) I particularly got a kick out of Sims’s pointing out pitfalls— Making a...