What to do when your Characters won’t Cooperate

One piece of writing advice I see fairly often is “let the characters do what they want.” On the whole, this is not bad advice - it tends to lead to a more organic story, and your characters will feel more believable. However, like most advice delivered in short, easy to remember phrases, the truth …

Sh*t my Editor Says

I love my editor. She is patient, understanding, and only kicks me in the ass when I absolutely need it.  She’s also hilarious. Since we’ve finished all but one final copy edit on Strange Cosmology, I thought it’d be fun to share some of her greatest quotes from the editing process. Enjoy. General Writing Quirks …

A Short Reminder to Breathe

I had a plan for today’s blog post. Over Saturday, I was going to use Amazon’s The Boys as my reward for editing Strange Cosmology - edit a couple scenes, watch an episode, and then repeat the process. However, I found two flaws in this plan. One was that I hated the first episode with …

Things to Ask Your Beta Readers Part 3 – Immersion

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I’ve always thought that is grossly unfair to words. A picture might get details you’d need a thousand words to capture fully, but with well-chosen words you can do so much more. In a thousand words I could tell you the history of a world, …

What Authors Can Learn from Box Office Bombs

It takes a village to raise a child. It takes a small city to make a movie. Directors, actors, producers, cameramen, extras, set designers, costume designers...when you go see Avengers Endgame in a couple of weeks and you’re sitting through the credits waiting for that post-credit scene, try to keep track of how many people …