Whatever fiction genre you write, you’re faced with assembling a cast of characters who will bring life to your story and engage your readers. Some are relatively easy: your protagonist is generally a likable, pleasant, intelligent, quirky person. Your antagonist gives readers a reason to distrust them. If you’re writing…

The words stopped me in my tracks. I’d been hired to write a grant proposal. It seemed like a good match, too: a not-for-profit agency that does work with homicide victims’ families in an inner-city locale, and a partnership grant between the federal Office of Victims of Crime and a…

Many (if not most) authors are introverts: we sit in a room and we write, and we like it that way. …

Ever since self-publishing really became a thing back in the early aughts with the increased popularity of print-on-demand and ebook technologies, more and more people have been writing fiction. I think that’s good. I think humanity needs all the stories, all the ideas we can get. The truth is, though…

I have always been a language curmudgeon. I’ve always taken the elitist view that people ought to be able to speak at least one language correctly, and have found myself immoderately angry when they do not. Misplaced apostrophes make me froth at the mouth. …

As the author of what you might call “fake-crime” stories (i.e., murder mysteries), I know better than most the universal appeal of violence, literary and otherwise. There’s a frisson attached to the danger, to the horror; a sort of schadenfreude that someone else died, not me; and of course the…

Here’s the nightmare scenario: you write a novel with more than one timeline, because… whatever (we’ll talk more about that in a moment). The reader picks it up, chooses their preferred timeline, and skips the other(s) altogether. Ack. How can you tell a story that’s clearly best told with multiple…

Most writers think they’re struggling with their writing, when what they’re actually struggling with is their thinking. It doesn’t feel like that, of course. I’m thinking just fine; I just can’t write. Well, actually, you can write. You’ve demonstrated in the past you’re perfectly capable of turning out writing that…

Key takeaways: Associate your brand with positive feelings for optimal engagement Create material that’s emotionally compelling for better sharing Deliver a story around your brand Shift focus from traditional sales thinking Use emotional hot buttons for best results What we’re now calling emotional branding isn’t new. Dale Carnegie developed famous…