Jami Gold's Blog: Jami Gold, Paranormal Author, page 17

How Pacing Helps Readers Care about Our Characters

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I need to make a confession: I never watched Game of Thrones. *grin*

As the series wrapped up over the last few weeks, I often felt like I was in a very small minority of those who didn’t watch the show. Pop-culture osmosis means I know a strangely large amount about the show—far more than for any other show I don’t watch—as I’m familiar with most of the characters, their family bonds, the highlights of their plot and arc, etc.

All that ex...

Branding 101: Defining Our Brand

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When we look at the writing-related skills and insights we need to learn, we often find it easier to understand lessons about the tangible aspects of our career. For example, craft skills about grammar or plot events can seem more straightforward to learn than skills about theme or voice.

Developing our skills for elements like theme, voice, motifs, style, mood, character likeability, etc. often feels more intangible. The “rules” or guidel...

The Pressure to Write: You Do You

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An article has been making the rounds recently with an interview of author Danielle Steel, and my friend Sieran Lane asked me what I thought of it. As the headline points out, she’s written 179 books, about 7 novels (not short stories, but novels) a year…which is obviously a lot.

Stories (and especially numbers) like that can make us doubt ourselves. We might feel like we’re not doing enough or are failing to act like a “real” author.

But...

Pantser vs. Plotter vs. Something in Between

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Far too often in life, we look for ways to make the complex more understandable by simplifying the idea…maybe too much. Much of real life requires nuance and shades of gray to capture the true picture that our simplification can erase.

(That’s not a complaint or statement about shortcuts or laziness. That’s simply human nature. *grin*)

That truth can be found in the writing world as well. I’ve mentioned many times that I don’t believe ther...

Pitching Our Story: Insights from Movie Trailers

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Years ago, before I decided to self-publish, I admitted several times here that I struggled with querying. Even after I made the self-publishing decision, I was still faced with the need to describe my story in an interesting way that would get readers’ attention.

Story pitches are used for self-published books as well as traditionally published books. No matter how we publish, we need to introduce our story to potential readers and intere...

Self-Publishing and Entrepreneurship

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In many ways, a writing career has a lot in common with being an entrepreneur. Even if we’re with a traditional publisher, we still have to manage our own branding, contracts, and acceptance of risk in ways that corporate employees usually don’t.

In the realm of self-publishing, the comparison to entrepreneurship is spot on. Our writing and publishing endeavors create our own little company. We’re responsible for assembling our team of edi...

Worldbuilding Is for Every Story

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As a paranormal romance author, it’s easy for me to know what the term worldbuilding refers to. Everyone understands what worldbuilding is when we’re talking about fantasy, science fiction, historical, etc., but it’s harder to pin down the meaning when we discuss contemporary stories.

However, every story includes worldbuilding. Even the most “normal” setting still requires us to establish our story’s world and situation.

This month’s #Rom...

The Power of Character Arcs

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I’ve said many times that I’m a genre girl. I prefer a story of romance, fantasy, science fiction, thriller, spy, heist, or mystery far more than a story in the literary category.

So it’s no surprise that I’ve been a big fan of the Marvel movies since the beginning. I haven’t seen every one in the theater or on opening weekend (that’s more about how I don’t always have time or energy to make it to any movies), but I caught them all on stre...

What’s Your Non-Fiction Voice?

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Even if we usually write fiction, many (if not most) of us will also need to write non-fiction occasionally. Fiction authors often use non-fiction messaging such as a blog, author bio, social media posts, interviews, author acknowledgements, guest posts, etc. For each of those, our fiction style of writing might not work or be appropriate, so we could need a different style.

A few days ago, reader and frequent commenter Sieran Lane asked m...

Revise vs. Start New: Which Is Better When We’re Stuck?

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No advice is “one size fits all.” Even the best, most helpful advice isn’t going to work well for every situation, so it’s far better to understand the reasons behind writing advice or grammar rules than to just assume that something must or can’t work.

For example, a common piece of advice—especially for new fiction writers—is that they shouldn’t get stuck on trying to succeed with a single story. Instead, the advice says that if we get s...