Jami Gold's Blog: Jami Gold, Paranormal Author, page 4

The Best Reason to Blog — 2020 Edition

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Today is Thanksgiving in the U.S. The day we’d usually eat too much food, roll our eyes at the antics of our extended family, and think about all the things we’re grateful for.

Of course, in the fourteen-bazillionth year of the pandemic (or maybe it just feels that way), nothing about this year is normal. Many of us have scaled back our gatherings, and it might be hard to find the energy or motivation to celebrate.

Despite all that, th...

What Kind of Marketing Plan Will Work for Us? — Guest: Siera London

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Two months ago, RWA (Romance Writers of America) offered an online version of their annual conference due to the pandemic. The RWA2020 Virtual Conference was a great idea not only for dealing with COVID, but it was also an easier/cheaper way for writers to participate.

Many of those attending enjoyed their first-ever RWA National Conference, as they didn’t have to deal with the costs or hassle of travel. Broadening access is a great side ...

How Can We Worldbuild on an Epic Scale?

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Early last year, I explored whether we could worldbuild without a plan. At the time, my perspective was mostly focused on pantsers, those who write by the seat of their pants and don’t plot in advance.

However, no matter how we write, it’s good for us to develop this worldbuilding-on-the-fly skill, as every story requires us to build a story world (at the very least for the genre, setting, and culture: think of small-town cozy mysteries v...

Storytelling Conflict: A Broader View

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In my last post here as well as in my latest guest post for Writers Helping Writers, we talked about whether every story needs conflict. As I shared in those posts, the assumptions we make about conflict don’t apply to every story, especially if we’re looking at other story structures from our usual, such as those outside Western storytelling.

Some commenters disagreed with my insights into how stories with different structures might take...

Does Every Story Need Conflict?

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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 revisionhow to increase the stakes (the consequences for failure) in our story7 ways to indicate time passage in our stories (and 2 issues to watch out for)how to translate story beats to any genrehow and why we sh...

Black Moments: Understanding Our Options

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After 10 years of blogging twice a week, I recently gave myself the gift of an irregular schedule, but I still intended on sharing articles most weeks. So what gives with the last few weeks of silent treatment here?

I had several guest posters lined up after my last normally scheduled post to allow me to take some time off…and then I (and my family) got sick. *sigh*

The nurse who tested us for COVID was certain our results would come b...

Writing Conflict: Love, Work, and Office Romance — Guest: Angela Ackerman

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As I announced a few weeks ago, the dynamic duo of Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi recently released their latest entry into their Thesaurus series: The Occupation Thesaurus. Like their popular Emotion Thesaurus and other Thesaurus books, the lists in The Occupation Thesaurus include many writing tips.

For example, each occupation listed in this latest release offers ideas for how we can twist the stereotypes for their job:

Should ou...

Writing Process: Developing a Coherent Story — Guest: Jael R. Bakari

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There’s no shortage of options for our writing process, but some will work better for us than others. Or some might work better for us on certain stories, while not being as helpful for us with other stories.

So I’m a fan of “collecting” various techniques. That way when we struggle, we’ll know about different approaches that we can try. To that end, I’ve been enjoying a Facebook conversation (in a private group, so I can’t link…sorry!), ...

What’s Our Character’s Job? Here’s Help (& a Giveaway)!

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Some stories or genres require our characters to have certain careers. For example, many types of thrillers need characters with military, spy, or legal system ties. Some contemporary romance series are based on Navy SEALs, NASCAR drivers, firefighters, etc. Some mystery or suspense series follow a private investigator, bounty hunter, etc.

In other stories, our character’s job is like a footnote to their backstory, or it’s simply a way to...

Keeping Our Stories and Notes Safe (& Blogiversary Winners)!

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Yay! This past weekend marked the official ten-year mark for my blog. *whew* I made it…even though the past few years made that milestone a bit questionable.

On my post announcing my annual Blogiversary Contest, we had enough comments to earn two winners. Woo hoo! But I always struggle with the part where random.org selects the winners because I wish I could give everyone a prize.

In fact, we ended up within rounding distance of having...