Jami Gold's Blog: Jami Gold, Paranormal Author, page 14

Backstory: Avoid Info Dumping by Making It Essential: Part 2 — Guest: Kris Kennedy

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One of my favorite aspects of developing a character’s arc is exploring their false belief because it’s key to the emotional heart of our story: a character’s struggles and journey toward change. Without a false belief established—that they then attempt to overcome—we’re more likely to have a hard time coming up with strong or interesting story events beyond just external plot obstacles.

If you’re not familiar with the concept, a character...

What Makes a Writer a “Real” Author?

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Over the years, there have been plenty of arguments about what makes someone a “real” writer or a “real” author. Those who fail the various tests are considered merely “aspiring” — if the tester is feeling generous.

In other cases, those who fail the test-of-the-day might be called worse, like a poser or hack or accused of producing (not creating) garbage or fluff. Impostor syndrome is rampant among writers, and “titles” like those take ad...

Backstory: Avoid Info Dumping by Making It Essential: Part 1 — Guest: Kris Kennedy

Here's the latest from Jami Gold, Paranormal Author :

One aspect of writing craft that can be hard for newer writers to grasp is the importance of context. We hear about showing vs. telling or “writing tight” or leaving things in subtext, but the truth is that most writing elements don’t work if readers don’t have the context to understand what the elements mean.

Showing needs context to be powerful. Sharp dialogue filled with subtext can be just confusing or meaningless without context. We d...

How Can We Make Scenes Feel Stronger with Sequels?

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My worksheets page is most often recommended for my beat sheets, but one of the other popular tools I share is the Elements of a Good Scene Checklist. The checklist (or the matching worksheet for use with multiple scenes) helps us identify whether a scene is truly necessary and contributing to our story.

Recently, I got an interesting question about scenes and sequels and how those relate to the Elements of a Good Scene Checklist. Specific...

“A Leap of Faith” in Fiction and in Life

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If we’ve ever paid attention to story structure, we might have noticed that near the end of a story, the protagonist often takes “a leap of faith” (at least in a positive-character-arc story, where the character has learned and overcome self-doubts). But it’s not always obvious how to add one to our story.

When I talk about this turning point in my Lost Your Pants? workshop, writers sometimes want to find a logical or factual explanation f...

Overwhelmed? Break Down Tasks for Writing and Life — Guest: Augustina Van Hoven

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The vast majority of us are too busy. Between writing, family, day job, and household obligations, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Add in that our writing life consists of big projects like “write a novel” or “publish a book,” and it’s sometimes a wonder that we don’t just curl up in a ball and give up.

Worse, the stress of trying to keep everything under control can scare our muse into the fetal position. Not good for our creativity.

Yet a...

Everyone Takes Wrong Turns…Even Amazon

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As writers, we all take wrong turns sometimes. That fact holds true no matter how much experience we gain.

We might draft a scene one way, only to get stuck and need to start over. We might draft the beginning and then abandon a new story idea that isn’t as strong as we hoped. We might try one agent or editor or publisher, and then figure out they weren’t quite what we were looking for in a publishing partner.

Once we’re published, we migh...

Cover Design: 4 Tips to Keep in Mind — Guest: Renee Wittman

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If we’ve been part of the writing community for a while, we’ve probably come across some basic advice about cover design. Those of us who get a say into our covers—either because our publishers listen to us or because we self-publish—might have even paid attention to some of those tips. *grin*

But as with most aspects of writing, there’s always more to learn. I’ve talked before about finding cover artists and my struggle to find diverse co...

Content Warnings: How and What to Include?

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Last year, Bran L. Ayres shared a fantastic guest post here about trigger warnings and dug into whether we should include them in our story. Their post included great insights into why we all like making informed decisions. Yes, that holds true even if we think trigger warnings are “stupid.” *grin*

The topic came up again this past week in a conversation on Twitter (that ranged far too broadly to give proper credit or links), as authors wo...

Can Common Writing Advice Be Wrong?

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I’ve often said that there’s no “one right way” in writing. That truth is evident from many perspectives.

I’ve posted about how there’s no “one right way” to…:

… draft a story. Whether we’re talking about the common advice to “write every day” or “wake early and write first thing,” our writing processes might work great for us…until they don’t. When our job or family situation changes, we might need to be flexible and try different process...