Jami Gold's Blog: Jami Gold, Paranormal Author, page 8

Writing Craft: How Point-of-View Affects Dialogue

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

With all the chaos in the world, my concentration is shot as far as writing. Im probably not alone.

Luckily, my readers are helping me out with questions that I can use for topic ideas. *grin* (So keep the questions coming!)

Eshaani asked:

My questions are:

1. Is it a change of POV when two characters are talking & one of them reacts to what the other said, but not loudly, not even physically (just a comment of scorn or disbelief but...

Writing Craft Basics: How to Format Dialogue

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If your brain is any amount of scattered like mine, now might be a good time to cover some of the basics of our writing craft. So lets tackle a subject I havent dug into here before: dialogue formatting and a few dos and donts.

I originally started this post intending to dig deeper into a dialogue point-of-view question a reader asked, but the introduction of these formatting basics took up the whole post. Oops! So rather than...

What’s Your Personal Story?

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

As I mentioned last time, many of us are struggling with anxiety right now, and that can affect our ability to focus and/or write. So Ive been keeping my eye open for anything that might help.

Along similar lines, two of my previous guest posters have shared their insights for dealing with anxiety as well. Author Roni Loren had a few tips for how to cope with COVID-19 anxiety. And author Julie Glover (who just recently debuted!) talked...

Writing in the Time of Coronanxiety

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

Everything in the news is currently all COVID-19 all the time. Not surprisingly, the endless updates from various countries along with the knowledge that the U.S. is vastly under-testing only increases our anxiety.

So while it might seem that all the cancellations mean that we have more time for writing, all that anxiety can make it hard to focus on our writing. (Believe me, I know. *she says as she starts writing this post far too late to...

Story Elements: Give Them Purpose

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Last time, I talked about how we can ensure our pacing is good. As I went into further in my guest post at Writers Helping Writers, one way to make sure our storys pacing is strong is to ensure every element has purpose.

How can we do that? As Dawn asked in the comments of my guest post:

How do I know if a scene is pointless? What questions should I be asking myself about whether certain paragraphs or sentences have purpose?

Lets dig into...

Story Pacing: How Can We Ensure Our Pacing Is “Good”?

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...

How to Support Literacy and Help Authors & Readers

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In my last post, we talked about how writers can pay they help they’ve received forward to others, especially to newer writers. However, there’s another aspect to writing life: readers.

Those of us who publish owe thanks to readers. Without readers, we’d just be publishing books for no reason. Readers help make the time and work we put into writing and editing all worth it.

Those of us who read are grateful to those who write the wonderful...

How Can Writers Pay It Forward?

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

Many of us write because we want to connect with readers. Maybe we want to make them think or not feel alone or simply entertain them for a bit.

Similar reasons explain why I write this blog. I often call myself pathologically helpful, and it makes my day when other writers let me know my advice or insights or tools helped them with their writing.

I know I’m not alone, as many of my fellow writers love helping the next generation develop...

Do Your Stories Have Deeper Meanings?

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

A joke about writing, meaning, and interpretation has circulated online for a long time. The idea is that literary analysis often delves far past an author’s intentions into imagining nonexistent meaning, usually in an attempt to establish deeper layers in a piece of writing (and thus justify their reason to analyze).

In the joke, a Venn diagram of two circles—”What the author meant” and “What your English teacher thinks the author meant”—...

Need Advice from an Editor?

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

Editing is the process of making our words (and sentences, scenes, and story) better. Unless we’re one of those authors who think everything we write is perfect from the moment we first type out the words, we all deal with the process of editing.

Whether we rely on heavy doses of self-editing, beta readers, critique partners, or professional editors, the editing process forces us to take a closer look at what we’ve written. That analysis...