An author’s long road to publication
Bestselling author Tiffany Reisz discusses book settings and how to use them in fiction in this First Draft Friday author chat.
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Creating a bestseller using Marlowe
Bestselling author James Rosone shares his editing process and how he uses an artificial intelligence editor, called Marlowe, in this First Draft Friday author chat.
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Making the most of your novel’s setting
Bestselling author Tiffany Reisz discusses book settings and how to use them in fiction in this First Draft Friday author chat.
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Knowing the feel of your genre
Book editor Stephenie Magister explores the feel and goal of literary genres in this First Draft Friday author chat.
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Picking or switching your genre
Ryan Schow, an author of post-apocalyptic fiction and urban fantasy, discusses the ins and outs of switching genres and choosing a subgenre in this First Draft Friday author chat.
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Robert Dugoni on creating page-turning plots
What’s more important, plot or character? I can easily jump into either side of this discussion, but the answer is often: both. One author who does a stellar job of weaving together page-turning plots with strong characters is Robert Dugoni, the critically acclaimed bestselling suspense and literary fiction author. Robert joined our First Draft Friday […]
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How to write more compelling characters
And how a deceptively simple question can help you do it I am in the middle of pitching a new police procedural series to a major digital-first publisher. We’ve worked together before and I’m playing pitch-doc tennis with my editor as we collaborate on the shape of the series. The proposal has gone through three […]
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Giving your characters a personality
Authors Greta Boris and Alessandra Torre chat about using the Enneagram typing system to develop your characters’ personality.
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How to write a gripping first page
Authors Joan Dempsey and Alessandra Torre chat about opening scenes in novels and how to create a gripping first page.
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Secrets of writing in different voices
Authors Jeff Wheeler and Alessandra Torre chat about writing in different voices and character point of views.
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Building a magic system from scratch
Authors C.R. Rowenson and Alessandra Torre chat about using magic systems in fiction and their creation and implementation.
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Five writing productivity hacks for authors who want to publish more books
There are a lot of blog posts out there about how to write better. You’ll find a fair number in our Writers Resource Center. But this isn’t that. This article is about how to write faster — or, more precisely, how to write more words. Publishing my first novel took me six months, from hand-writing […]
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