Jami Gold's Blog: Jami Gold, Paranormal Author, page 25

Brainstorming Your Story? Proactively Avoid Issues

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When we first start coming up with story ideas, we often want to remain as open-minded as possible. The craziest brainstorming can result in the most unique stories. *grin*

But at some point, we have to take those various thoughts for our story and assemble them into ideas that we can actually make work. Depending on where we fall on the pantser (those who write by the seat of their pants) to plotter spectrum, that assembly and planning st...

Setting Up a Book Launch for Success — Guest: Christina Delay

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As authors, our focus is usually on our stories. We love thinking about our characters, writing craft, and storytelling. However, there’s more to being a successful author than just writing. *cue groans*

If any of our measures of success include growing our readership, we also have to figure out how to best find and market our book to readers who will love our story. And that means we have to think like entrepreneurs a bit.

(Believe me, I...

What Do You Want to Write But Haven’t Yet?

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I saw an interesting question on Twitter by author Delilah S. Dawson the other day:

“Is there anything you’ve wanted to write that you haven’t attempted yet? Themes, characters, genres?”

As authors, we often have more ideas for stories than we actually write. Some we might not write because we realize we’re not passionate enough about the idea to put in the work of actually writing the story. But for some ideas, we might have other reasons...

Can TV Shows Help Us Hook Our Readers?

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It’s time for another one of my guest posts over at Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi’s Writers Helping Writers site. As one of their Resident Writing Coaches, I’ve previously shared:

insights on how to approach an overwhelming revision how to increase the stakes (the consequences for failure) in our story 7 ways to indicate time passage in our stories (and 2 issues to watch out for) how to translate story beats to any genre how and why w...

Character Conflict: Goals, Needs, and False Beliefs

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Last time, we explored what goes into creating layered characters. One example I gave for the types of elements we layer into our stories was conflicting character goals:

conflicting character goals, maybe one a conscious desire and one a subconscious longing that makes it harder for them to make progress

In other words, just as our characters can have inner and outer layers, the same applies to their goals, needs, and longings. Those go...

What Does It Mean to Create Layered Characters?

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In the writing world, we’ve probably heard the advice to create layers in our stories and characters. Sounds good, but what does it mean? Let’s take a look…

What Are Layers and Why Do We Want Them?

The word layers can refer to many different aspects of writing, which doesn’t help our understanding of what they are or why we want them in our stories. *smile*

For example, we might strive to layer in:

setting, action, and body language infor...

Choices, Choices: Debating How a Scene Should Play Out

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First off, a quick update on my recent chaos—post tree crashing, family drama, death of our cat, and introduction of our new kitten. Things have been calmer the last few days, so hopefully my week from hell is over. *smile*

We’ve also come up with a name for the kitty … Lucy!

Wait, didn’t I say that we were looking for a name vaguely appropriate for her black-ish coat? Ah, well, her middle name is Fur, so together, her name is Lucy Fur (so...

How Important Is Talent? — Guest: Lizzie Shane

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In any subjective situation, there’s no one right answer to succeed. What works for one person might not work for another.

That uncertainty in outcomes can lead to self-doubt when we struggle:

Are we doing it wrong? Are we not good enough to succeed? Are we just unlucky?

When talking about artistic fields, such as writing, that uncertainty is often chalked up to talent. We might think that we either have the talent to succeed or we don’t...

Can We Apply Writing Lessons to Our Life?

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As I mentioned last time, my family struggled this past weekend when we had to say goodbye to our cat, Raven. The last time we lost a pet, I wasn’t ready to get another for over a year. But this time—especially with her being taken from us so young—felt different.

It’s not that we can ever replace a loved one. But we can be so used to having them around that we long to fill that empty place sooner rather than later.

As we were debating the...

A Reminder to Enjoy the Journey

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Last week I mentioned that I was trying to survive the week from hell. The week didn’t end any better, as those of you who follow me on Facebook or Twitter might have already seen the news that this past weekend we had to say goodbye to our cat.

On Facebook, I shared an image of Raven from 5 years ago (taken at the vet after we first got her) and this message:

Thank you to the hundreds who have commented and shared their condolences. Trul...