Jami Gold's Blog: Jami Gold, Paranormal Author, page 23

How to Level-Up Our Writing — Guest: Maureen Crisp

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

Like with many skills, writing requires practice. We might have even heard the saying that we won’t be any good until we write a million words for that “practice.”

Is that claim true? Is a million words the key to getting in the practice that we need to be good at writing?

Or is there a smarter way to practice that will help us more quickly master the skills of writing? Maybe even before we pound out those million words. *grin*

Maureen Cri...

How to Level-Up Our Writing ��� Guest: Maureen Crisp

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

Like with many skills, writing requires practice. We might have even heard the saying that we won’t be any good until we write a million words for that “practice.”

Is that claim true? Is a million words the key to getting in the practice that we need to be good at writing?

Or is there a smarter way to practice that will help us more quickly master the skills of writing? Maybe even before we pound out those million words. *grin*

Maureen Cri...

How Do We Check the Facts in Our Fiction? — Guest: Selina J. Eckert

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

Facts—and the lack of them—have been in the news lately, as society struggles to define what makes a fact a fact. But as the publishing industry says, fiction has to make more sense than real life.

The real world can get away with people whose motivations don’t make sense or plot twists and details that are too ridiculous to believe. In our stories, logic and consistency are required.

In any world, it’s a fact that I’m struggling with my N...

How Do We Check the Facts in Our Fiction? ��� Guest: Selina J. Eckert

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

Facts���and the lack of them���have been in the news lately, as society struggles to define what makes a fact a fact. But as the publishing industry says, fiction has to make more sense than real life.

The real world can get away with people whose motivations don’t make sense or plot twists and details that are too ridiculous to believe. In our stories, logic and consistency are required.

In any world, it’s a fact that I’m struggling with...

Using Tips from Poetry to Strengthen Our Prose ��� Guest: Pamela Donison

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

Whether we’re novelists or short story writers, we’ve probably experienced the irony of how longer writing���such as our story���can sometimes be easier to write than something shorter, like a synopsis, query, Twitter pitch, or log line. The shorter we go, the more every word counts.

That’s why authors often turn to the skills important in poetry to strengthen our writing. In poetry, every word counts for rhythm, imagery, rhyming, etc., so...

How to Use Scrivener for NaNoWriMo ��� Guest: Gwen Hernandez

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

For the past several years, the Scrivener drafting program has been one of the sponsors for��NaNoWriMo and offered deals to participants. Beyond the “try free for 30 days” version anyone can grab off their website, NaNo participants usually get 20% off and winners often get 50% off a full license.

In fact, that’s how I first started using Scrivener. The year I first participated in NaNo, they offered a special NaNo version of the software,...

Writer Productivity: Who Needs a Magic Wand? ��� Guest: Pascale Kavanagh

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

Today’s the first day of NaNoWriMo, so today kicks off the first of many fantastic guest posts I have lined up for us while I’m desperately trying to find my writing groove again. *grin* Luckily, I have the perfect post to get us started on the right foot���whether we’re doing NaNo or not.

Productivity is a major buzzword for writers, especially during NaNo. But even if we’re not doing NaNo, we all want to increase our focus, reduce our di...

Writer Confidence: Do You Self-Reject?

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

Writers often suffer from self-doubt. We’re not sure if our story idea is strong enough or interesting enough. We don’t know if we’re the right person to write our idea. We don’t think our story is any good once we start writing.

And on and on it goes…

All that self-doubt can lead to a problem where we reject ourselves before others do���or before they even can. In other words, we can decide not to try for opportunities, and we can make th...

Creating Satisfying Endings without Clich��s

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

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been talking about story endings:

First, we dug into the pros and cons of epilogues and broke down how they might sometimes help or hurt our story. Then we debated how to fulfill our story’s promise to readers and when an epilogue might be needed to create a sense of closure. Finally, we focused on keeping in mind the emotional journey we want readers to experience, especially when we need to make storytelli...

Storytelling: Taking Readers on a Journey

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

Two weeks ago, we talked about the pros and cons of epilogues. Then last week, we discussed the importance of fulfilling our story’s promise���even if it requires an epilogue.

Just like the debate about prologues, the decision of how to end our story isn’t always clear. On some level, the best choice is whatever direction allows us to tell the story we want to tell.

Seems obvious, but what does that mean? After all, we can probably all thi...