Throughout childhood, I remember that my imagination was often the topic of conversation. Sometimes it was complimented, sometimes it was the subject of looks that made me think, “What? What did I do?” “You’re crazy,” my friends from high school used to say. They laughed when I tried the impossible or told them some of [...]

When I was in school, I never ran with the popular crowd. I never fit into any clique, really. I drifted between the artsy folk, the drama club members, and a few of the freaks who spent time between classes having a smoke out back. I was always the type of kid who was a [...]

In past Fiction Writing Series posts, we’ve discussed how to make people care about your character, why characters rule the story, and overcoming the fear of hurting your characters. Now it’s time to build a character. Open the creative vaults and let your imagination run wild. The Spark of Creation Everyone has their own process [...]

Aloha: it means hello, good-bye, and I love you. Aloha is more than a word, though. In the Hawaiian culture, aloha embodies the spirit of the islands and its people. It is a mindset and a way of life called “the Aloha Spirit”. Within this Aloha Spirit is a form of spirituality the Hawaiians call [...]

A recent post on bringing dialogue to life did more than expected: It brought our readers to life in the comment section in ways we never expected. It all began with a response to the post on embellishing dialogue with action. Melissa Donovan dropped a comment that what we seasoned gamers refer to as “In [...]

A great novel has stunning visual imagery. There’s no way around it; if you can literally “see” the scene in your head, then the book you’re reading reached a fantastic goal. But you can’t make a novel based on description alone. You need dialogue. Good dialogue, interesting dialogue. Characters need to interact and speak to [...]

One of the 7 Deadly Fears of Writing is the fear of research. Either you love researching or you hate it, but a realistic novel can’t avoid it. The details you add to your novel are what make the story credible and help suspend disbelief. The days of poring over old tomes and searching endless [...]

Before writing became my career, I wrote creatively for pleasure on role-playing game (RPG) forum boards. I’d spend hours gaming, writing out scenes and character reactions. From 2001 to late 2006, I wrote every day – not one day passed without a post. I wrote enough material for a novel, even enough for several novels. [...]

I once ran a very successful PhP gaming board. I made the story up for players as I went along. There was no plan at all, and I winged it every step of the way. I had a beginning and a premise, and the players knew they had to go from point A to point [...]

Fear of the unknown. Fear of pain. Fear of death. Isn’t that what holds you back from putting your character through hell? But without the raw emotion that only hurting your character creates, you’ll never achieve a rich, in-depth story that grips readers – from the heart. What makes us fear pain so much, even [...]