Jami Gold's Blog: Jami Gold, Paranormal Author, page 30

Writing Worries: Fighting the One-Hit-Wonder Problem

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

A few years ago, I wrote about the problem of feeling “validated” as an author. I’m updating that post today because… *whispers* …I have news. *grin* And gee, the struggle for validation hasn’t magically gone away in the interim…

Writers are often a neurotic, self-doubting lot. We doubt whether we’re telling the right story, whether we can do our idea justice, whether that sentence needs a comma or not. *smile*

That doubting continues over...

Writing Craft Master Lists: Filling in the Blanks—Parallelism

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

A few weeks ago, I shared my series of huge mega-posts listing every writing craft skill I could think of for story development, line editing, and copy editing.

We can use those lists to learn drafting skills, self-editing skills, and evaluating skills (for freelance editors). But before I offer them as downloadable checklists for everyone—so we can keep track of our educational progress—I want to make sure these lists are as complete as p...

What Is Line Editing and What Should Line Editors Do?

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

Last month, when I put together the Master Lists of writing craft skills to provide insights for self-editing and/or finding editors, I created a list for each phase of editing:

content/developmental editing  (fix story and character-level issues) line editing  (fix scene and paragraph-level issues) copy editing  (fix sentence, word, and grammar-level issues)

As I mentioned in the Line Editing post, in my experience, line editing is the har...

How to Create Positive Themes Despite Bittersweet Endings

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

Last week, my latest Resident Writing Coach post at Writers Helping Writers brought up the potential for allowing unintended themes to appear in our story. Every cause-and-effect aspect of our story can create the possibility of our characters experiencing success or failure for the “wrong” subtextual reason, theme-wise.

For example, we might want to create a theme about our character’s internal strength leading to survival. But if our cha...

Punch Up Our Writing with Word Lists

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

At some point in our editing process, we usually have to get nitpicky about our word choices. Maybe we…

used the word snapped twice on one page, or named an emotion, such as happy, rather than showed what that emotion looked like, or used a weak verb, like went, when a more active or precise verb would be stronger.

No matter the specifics, this step can be tedious but oh-so-important. Readers will notice (at least on a subconscious level...

Are Unintended Themes Undermining Your Story?

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

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...

Characters: More Than Just Imaginary People — Guest: Damon Suede

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

When we first start writing, we discover that many words we’re familiar with have different meanings within the context of the writing and publishing world.

For example, outside of the writing world, the word conflict often evokes images of fist fights or screaming matches. However, in the writing world, conflict can be used more generally to describe a gap between what characters want and what they have.

Another word we’re all familiar wi...

Are Speedbumps Holding Back Your Writing?

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

Every year Romance Writers of America (RWA) holds the RITA awards, a contest for the best romances released the previous year. The awards ceremony held at the RWA Annual Conference is the Oscars of the romance-writing world, complete with a black-tie dress code.

As a published author, I get to be a judge for the contest, which is always great fun for me. Two years ago, I judged one book I loved so much the author landed on my “auto buy” li...

What Are Your Favorite Writing-Related Resources?

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

As I mentioned in my post last week, I’ve been a huge fan of Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi’s work for years. In addition to their helpful blog, they’re the genius duo behind the Thesaurus books and the One Stop for Writers website.

So to celebrate the 10th anniversary of their blog (and to improve my mega-posts listing every writing craft skill I could think of for story development, line editing, and copy editing), I held a giveaway c...

Writing Craft Master Lists: Filling in the Blanks—Theme Development

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

A few weeks ago, I shared my series of huge mega-posts listing every writing craft skill I could think of for story development, line editing, and copy editing.

My goal is to give us a list we can use for learning:

writing craft for drafting our stories self-editing skills how to identify the core issue behind feedback (some feedback is good at finding a problem but trips over how best to fix it) the focus of the different phases of editi...