Jami Gold's Blog: Jami Gold, Paranormal Author, page 58

Release News! How Do You Deal with “Hurry Up and Wait”?

Many times in our writing career—just as with life in general—we have to hurry up… And then wait.

Maybe we had to hurry to finish a contest entry in time, and then we had to wait for the results. Or maybe we had to hurry to send our revisions to our editor, and then we had to wait for their feedback. Or if we’re in traditional publishing, maybe we had to hurry up to submit our book and then wait for over a year for it to be published.

I’m in hurry-up-and-wait mode today. I’ve been getting ab...

Are Beta Characters Weak?

Between my guest post at the Writers in the Storm about balancing character strengths and vulnerabilities and my post on Tuesday about alpha heroines, we’ve been talking a lot about character strengths lately. But I want to talk about the opposite problem: a character without strengths.

In the comments of my last post, Lee Summerall brought up the question of where beta characters fall. Lee was concerned that because I talked about the strengths of an alpha heroine, that must mean that betas...

What Is an Alpha Heroine?

Yesterday, I guest posted at theWriters in the Storm blog about making our characters strong yet vulnerable. I blogged about the topic here last year, but my post over at WITS includes details of how I tackled the issue with my characters in my releasing-next-week (Ack!) novel, Treasured Claim.

I shared how I balanced my hero’s strengths and vulnerabilities to keep him relatable so he’s not an alpha-hole jerk. *smile* And I also talked about how I balanced my heroine’s many strengths with he...

Do You Have a Publishing Plan?

Those of you who have been following my publishing process might be wondering why the one book I have out so far—Unintended Guardian—is free.

After all, it costs money—potentially lots of money—to publish a book.On that short story, Ipaid for editing, cover design, and formatting, and now that Amazon has caught up with the freebie price in all their stores (except for Germany, Mexico, and Japan—the slackers), I’m not making any money to recoup those costs.

That sounds like a good way to go b...

What Should We Do If We’re Sick of Our Story?

When we first start writing our story, we’re filled with passion for the idea. We’re excited to explore the intricacies of our plot and eager to discover the depths of our characters. If we write by the seat of our pants, we might even be curious about how our story will unfold.

But at some point, that excitement, eagerness, and curiosity might (and probably will) diminish. In fact, we might dread working on our story.

This past weekend, I posted a simple update on Facebook:

“I am now at the...

Story Climax: Forcing Characters to Move Forward

Editor Victoria Mixon states that our story’s Climax is “The Point” of our story. Whatever confrontation, revelation, redemption, growth, realization, etc. happens in the Climax is often the reason we decided to write the story back when it was just a twinkle in our muse’s eye. *smile*

The events of the Climax also create the story’s premise. If our Climax requires our character to confront the bad guy, the premise is an extension of that:

The character must learn to overcome their fears to...

Revision Technique: Why Did You Do That?

The other week, I talked about how to find the right editor for us: the right kind with the right strengths and the right style. At the end of that series, I pointed out how one of the most important considerations is that we trust our editor.

There’s a reason I emphasized that point over and over. And that reason ties in to how we draft, revise, and edit—whether we use paid professional help or not.

Sometimes the best way to improve our writing is to have to justify the choices we’ve made....

What Kind of Advice Works for You?

I often point out how there’s no “one right way.”There’s no one right way to brainstorm, draft, or edit our book. There’s no one right way to query or publish our books. And there’s no one right way to market or promote our books.

We can probably all think of several ways that don’t work—ever. Constant “buy my book” tweets? That definitely doesn’t work. Ditto for just whining about wanting to write a book but never actually putting in the time to do it. *smile*

But there are often several pa...

Picking Editors: What Do You Need from Your Editor?

I wasn’t planning on doing another post about picking editors, but a couple of great comments and questions brought up a few more issues I want to touch on. *smile*

Last week, we talked about the different kinds of editing and editors. Whether or not we pay a professional editor for all the different steps of editing, it’s good to understand the stages so we can ensure that we’re checking for potential issues in the right order.

We also talked about how to evaluate editors. I emphasized that...

Picking Editors: How to Evaluate Potential Editors

Last time we talked about how to know what type of editing we need for our strengths and weaknesses. Depending on our situation, we might be able to find others to help us, such as beta readers, family, or friends. Other times we might be able to exchange our strengths for editing services from others.

I’ve traded my developmental editing skills for developmental edits and copyedits on some of my stories. Those trades cost me time but have greatly helped my wallet. *smile*

However, we might...