Dialogue tags, or attributions, tell the reader who’s speaking. The default setting is he said/she said. Easy, right? Nice and straightforward, nothing complicated. It’s practically invisible, until the author throws forty-seven of them into one page. Some authors feel an overwhelming urge to spice things up and get creative; they want to make sure the reader really understands the dialogue and accompanying emotion. They bombard us with synonyms and avoid he said/she said as if they were fatal diseases. I’m reading a novel by a popular author, and came under an assault that very nearly made me put the book down. (Curiosity prompts me […]

I am so proud to announce that my book, As the Crow Flies, just released! If you love tales about thieves, magic, and dragons, you’ll want to read this. What happens when a skilled thief is forced to steal the impossible? Sent on a mission to fetch a precious (and rare) dragon’s egg for a wizard with dire plans in mind, Crow must work with his worst enemy, a man whose grasp he has successfully avoided for years. The lives of their loved ones are in the balance. Their journey takes them through perilous countryside and pits them against weather, […]

To celebrate the upcoming release of my fantasy novel, and to give readers a taste of what to expect on December 10, 2012, I want to share with you the first chapter of As the Crow Flies. I’d love to hear what you think! Chapter 1 Flying Weather I am called Crow, and I am a thief. The name and the profession go hand in hand and, like the bird, I am not at all opposed to appropriating what pleases me. I am good at it. Crows are smart and clever. Black of hair, dark of eye, and dusky of […]

  A little more than a week into this project, and I’m almost at the halfway mark! I am also at the part (Week 2) where the initial excitement has worn off a bit and I find myself struggling. I find that a little frustrating, because I know where this story is going. A newsletter in my mailbox today led me to Jamie Todd Rubin’s Five tips for a successful NaNoWriMo (and how Scrivener can help), and from there I found my way to Larry Brooks’s Story Structure Series. I decided not to read the entire series in one sitting (I […]

Dialogue, conversation between two characters, is often one of the toughest aspects of story-writing, and yet it is a great tool for characterization, readability, and pacing. It’s also one of the best ways to improve your fiction because, as James Scott Bell says: Sodden, overwritten dialogue sticks out of a manuscript like a garrulous uncle at Thanksgiving. In order to make your dialogue work, the first thing you need to do is throw out everything you know — or think you know — about proper grammar and good sentence structure, because that’s just not how people talk. They use a […]

How many of you have ever experienced something and then given the “It was good, but” rating? I might better ask who has not…! “But” supplies an objection. It turns the “good” into a negative. Yes, the possibility of goodness remains, however deep the stain that comes after that tiny conjunction, but the whole has still been tainted. “But” implies that something about the subject could have been, should have been better. The doctor’s intentions were good, but he prescribed the wrong medication.  The holiday spending record is good, but the government figures on which the National Retail Federation bases […]

Whether to publish digitally or traditionally seems to be the question of the day in the writing world. And to that I say… Well, let me back up a little. I am a writer. I’ve written a lot of words. I am, in fact, well past the “10,000 hour” rule. Nearly all of that writing has been done for the simple fact that I love doing it. I find the undertaking to be exciting, even seductive (and we won’t talk about the aggravatingly challenging parts). When I am writing, the rest of the world might not even exist. Food? Oh, […]

I’m excited. My good friend and writing partner, Kristie Kiessling, has published a thoroughly good read over on Smashwords. I hope you all will take the time to go read it, and to comment either on her Smashwords page or on her Facebook. Yodhi’s blood is special.  The doctors say his blood could change the face of modern medicine.  All his parents want to do is take their baby home.  Congratulations, Kristie!

If you are a gardener of any kind, you know that weeds (and bugs) are the enemies of your careful planning, planting, and fertilizing. Our word gardens – our books, stories, articles, etc. – need care, too. Hiding beneath the lush scenery of our imaginations, there are weeds and bugs that have got to go. Just because something is unseen, in no way means it has gone unnoticed. To the untrained, small mistakes can collect in the subconscious. A reader might put a book down and never know exactly why she couldn’t get engaged, or why she felt the text […]