Have you ever read a sentence about food that was so vivid it made you actually taste it? Taste is the most powerful of all senses because we love food. We need it to survive and, as humans, eating brings us pleasure. Describing taste can be so impactful for a reader, yet some authors avoid it because they can’t think of the right words. The truth is it’s really hard. You end up actually using all of your senses to … Read More »

We all know that the more reviews a book receives, the better—whether reader responses on Goodreads, BookBub, or Amazon, or professional editorial reviews. But writer, beware: the more reviews pile up, the more likely it is that one or more of them will be bad. That’s statistically inevitable. There is no one book that everyone likes (except maybe Harry Potter). People’s tastes and expectations are too varied. You try to pitch your work to those who “like that kind of … Read More »

Welcome back to our discussion about the writer’s voice!  If you’ve worked through the exercises in Oh, Those Voice (Part 1),  you should have some idea about the nature of your raw voice. That is your starting point. As writers we need to be able to shape our voice each time we write. And for each thing we write it may be a differently shaped voice. Still yours, but molded to fit what you are writing. And, hopefully, a voice … Read More »

The herring fish of Eugene Field’s poem “Winken, Blinken and Nod” was probably a special glittering creature, because the fishermen went after them with nets of silver and gold. Writers, on the other hand, are always interested in the infamous red herring. A device especially employed in mysteries, it can be used in other genres as well. What is a red herring and how can it be a helpful item on your authorial menu? Let’s take a look. A false … Read More »

Happy New Year! And what a better way to start than tackling one of the knottiest issues in writing: voice. We were born with a voice. So why is it many manuscripts get rejected because an agent/editor says there’s no voice? Then we authors go off frantically searching for our voice as though we’d misplaced it somewhere. The truth of the matter is that you have a voice. It’s just that, often, an author’s voice doesn’t work for a number … Read More »

Star Wars fans aren’t the only ones obsessed with The Mandalorian. The Disney+ series, now in its second season, is five times more popular than any other program on the streaming service. Jon Favreau and his contributing writers have accomplished what no one thought was possible: adapting a brand new Star Wars storyline that is beloved by both old and new fans. This was something the three prequels couldn’t seem to do. Not only did Favreau switch back to the … Read More »