Jami Gold's Blog: Jami Gold, Paranormal Author, page 41

3 Steps to Raise Our Story’s Stakes

In my first post as a Resident Writing Coach over at Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi’s Writers Helping Writers site, I shared encouragement for approaching a big revision. Even when it seems like everything needs work, the elements of our stories—from goals and stakes to pacing and obstacles—all interconnect, so the fixes we make to one element are likely to improve the others as well.

Now that it’s my turn for another coaching article at WHW, I figured I’d dig deeper into one of those sto...

Story Structure: What’s the Purpose…for Readers?

Ever wonder how many of the writing “rules” have a reason beyond just “because I said so”? *smile* It’s easy to think of the rules we’re supposed to follow as being given from on high and forget that most rules or guidelines started with an understanding of how to improve our writing.

For example, many of us have heard the advice to avoid head-hopping. Without understanding why that “rule” exists, we might decide to ignore it simply because we feel contrarian. However, if we understand why i...

Brain Science: Right Brain vs. Left Brain vs. Creativity

I’ve mentioned before that I find brain science fascinating. From the time I was a young child, I wondered if I saw the color green the same way others did or if we all see colors a little (or a lot) differently. Or what about tastes or smells?

The more I’ve learned about the variety of human perception, the more I realize my bizarre musings as a child weren’t far off. *grin* We often take for granted that others process and perceive things the same way we do, but that’s not the case at all....

Story Immersion: What Pulls You In?

When I joined Goodreads back in May of 2010—long before I published and became a “Goodreads Author”—I had the chance to think about the type of books I liked to read. That’s an official question, right in the account settings for Goodreads profiles:

“What Kind of Books Do You Like to Read?”

At the time, I’d never put my preferences into words before. I was like the stereotypical design client from hell: I don’t know what I want, but I’ll know it when I see it. *smile*

The answer I eventually...

Faking It: Making Our Actions Count

For the last month, I’ve been “faking it,” as I’ve tried to keep up with my various deadlines while sick. Thanks to several fantastic guest posts from Shaila Patel, Christina Delay, and a wonderful series by Naomi Hughes, I’ve managed to not fall insanely behind.

However, this past weekend, within hours of finishing a big deadline project, I came down with a cold on top of the intestinal infection I’ve been fighting for weeks.

Normally for me, a cold is just an inconvenience, some sniffles a...

Are There Story Elements You Avoid Writing?

We’ve talked before about how the stories we write are affected by our worldview. Our view of the world—optimistic or pessimistic, God does or doesn’t exist, true love is possible or not, people are basically good or selfish, technology will help us or kill us, etc.—is reflected in our stories and themes.

In fact, we might not even be able to write against our worldview. If we’re drawn to strong heroines, we probably wouldn’t write a doormat type.  If we enjoy rooting for the underdogs in st...

How to Make Our Blog Images Tell a Story

Many forms of writing include visual elements. While the internet conveys most information through text, it’s also a visual medium with GIFs, YouTube videos, and user-focused website design. Even simple blogs frequently include images to increase interest.

Social media—from Facebook and Pinterest to Instagram and Twitter—often focus on images. Tweets with images attached grab more attention than those without. Same with Facebook posts. So our blogs will not only look better with at least one...

Story Beginnings: Creating the Right First Impression — Guest: Shaila Patel

No matter how much we study and try different approaches, we often struggle with our story’s first pages. We know how important it is to create a good first impression with our readers, yet there are so many elements we have to juggle that the pieces often don’t come together easily.

We might describe nail-biting action, but forget to help readers connect with the character. Or we might spend too much time in our character’s head and fail to anchor readers in the setting to give them somethi...

Story Structure: What Should We Do for Trilogies?

Even though I’m a pantser (writing by the seat of my pants), I still enjoy digging into the structure of stories. (Hence, all my beat sheets. *smile*) In fact, I suspect most of the stereotypical issues of those who pants rather than plot come down to a need for understanding story structure better.

In my opinion, every writer should have at least a subconscious understanding of story structure. After all, if we don’t understand what helps readers experience a story’s ups and downs or keep t...

5 Steps to Avoid Overwriting — Guest: Christina Delay

Back when we were newbie writers, we might have assumed our goal would be to perfectly replicate our ideas in our readers’ brains. We might have thought readers should picture our settings and characters exactly as we do, hear precisely the same tones of voices, and grasp every nuance of our characters’ emotions that we imagined.

However, that assumption of thinking every detail is equally important to understanding and enjoying our story leads many writers down the path of overwriting. And...