If I had to summarize the ending of a book, I will say that the end usually refers to the truth, because it’s not usually until the end of a book that readers are given all of the truth. For the past three days, I’ve tried hard to finish my new manuscript only to realize it won’t happen in 30 days of writing. I definitely can write a book in 30 days and have done it more than once. When I thought of doing this project, I had in mind to write a new thriller-suspense book. Thri

I can’t end this blog project without once discussing what I try and achieve in my book’s dialogue. Okay, I have to say it although I’ve said this many times before. This is another important aspect of good books, but in all honesty, it’s not the most important. BUT bad dialogue can truly hurt a book. You might be thinking you don’t need help in dialogue; after all, it’s only the words spoken by characters in your book. Wrong! You don’t believe me? Read these quotes. They’re

The characters in your book can be the difference of a bad book and a great one. I know I gave other reasons that can make a book bad, but characterization is extremely important when writing any story. There are all types of characters mentioned in books. In other words, there are all types of personalities an author gives to readers. Did you know that psychologists believe there are four prototype personality traits? According to them a person is either sanguine (someone wh

What is driving your plot? You should have an idea about this sometime in the beginning of writing your manuscript. Did you know that all good writers purposely choose one of two ways to drive their story and keep readers motivated in reading? The two ways to drive a book forward are character driven stories and plot driven stories. A character driven novel focuses on the main characters inner turmoil while dealing with a dilemma. A plot driven novel focuses more on the twist

I hope you're feeling groovy. If you're not, start writing and pretty soon you'll feel like this guy does, because writing a book is just as fulfilling as read a very good and well written book. It is my process for each story I write to have a climax in the plot right before I end the story by giving readers closure to the dilemma that’s mentioned at the start of the book. During this climax, I want it to be like the 4th of July. From page one until the moment of climax, my

Writing a book is writing the same sentence over and over. Don’t get stuck and frustrated if this happens to you. It’s a sign you are truly an author and you have an innate ability in knowing when a sentence could be written stronger. What I described happens to me all the time, especially as I’m reading over a chapter I’ve already written. It’s not so much that I’m making major changes to a sentence. The reason I find myself rewriting a sentence over and over can be for seve

To write good fiction, you must do several things: 1. Know what readers are looking for. 2. Have a good opening paragraph and first chapter. 3. Have a good plot. 4. Have three dimensional characters readers will care about. 5. You must know when to trust your writing instincts. 6. You must also know when to ditch certain writing desires and stick to the genre and standard of the fiction you are writing. 7. Good dialogue that keeps the story moving. All artists never want to f

I wrote this last night and forgot to post it! Today let’s talk about narrative. There are different types of narrative in literature. When I talk of narrative in this post, I’m referring to parts of the book written from the point of view the author. To achieve this type of narrative, on most occasions the story is written in third person omniscient. Now, there’s a lot to mention about POV, but to keep it simple, third person omniscient is a story where the author is omnipre

Have you ever seen something tragic on the news or Internet that made you have to find out why the incident happened and what kind of person could be behind it? If we at the recent event at Douglas High School, it’s not surprising to learn that people flooded the internet to learn more about the shooter. The reason people wanted to know more about him is because they wanted to personally understand the motives behind his actions. I’ll go further to say that a lot of curiosity