Bev Pettersen's Blog, page 14
September 24, 2019
Wordsmith Wednesday: Strong Opening Paragraphs
Welcome to Wordsmith Wednesday: Opening Paragraphs! I’m your host, Tamara Hogan.
In this monthly feature, we’ll analyze strong opening paragraphs by looking at examples from both published books and unpublished manuscripts.
The unpublished manuscripts part is where you come in. 
MAKE IT GOLDEN 2019 Contest RULES!!
September 22, 2019
HAPPY TENTH BIRTHDAY TO THE RUBIES!!!!
IT’S OUR BIRTHDAY!!! AND WE’VE BEEN BLOGGING FOR A DECADE!!! The Ruby Slippered Sisterhood was born in 2009 when we were all nominated for the Romance Writers’ of America’s Golden Heart Award.
That crazy, giddy, exhilarating (and often confusing and scary) experience forged a powerful friendship which has seen us through ten years of creative work, as we’ve brought hundreds of books into the world, and experienced some wild publishing (and personal) ups and downs. We’ve cheered each other on,...
September 18, 2019
Technical Difficulties!
Loyal friends of the blog, please bear with us as we have had some technical difficulties over the last week. We’re working with our web guru to resolve the problems and get back up and running. Thank you for your patience!
September 15, 2019
September 12, 2019
Flash Fiction Friday!
Hi, all! *waves madly* I’m joining Darynda in hosting Flash Fiction Fridays. But I’m going to do things a little differently. Yeah, I march to the beat of a slightly out of tune drum. Once a month, I’ll give you a writing prompt, dialogue prompt, or idea prompt. I’ll even give you multiple directions you might go with the prompt. Your word counts can be as little as a line or two up to 300 words. No pressure! This is supposed to be a fun way to get those creative juice...
September 9, 2019
Taglines, part 1
The second Tuesday of the month at the Rubyslipperedsisterhood blog will be about taglines and blurbs. We’re going to start off with a two month practice on taglines, so save what you do for our second half on October 8.
Taglines are those little descriptions that you see in the TV section of the paper or the guide on your TV. For example: On Downton Abbey, Lady Edith shoots Lady Mary, Anna slaps Bates, and the earl runs off with Thomas. Okay, that was a terrible example, but you get the idea...
September 8, 2019
Indie, Are Ya?
So, you’ve decided to be your own boss. Not an easy decision. Kudos to you for grabbing the entrepreneurial reins. And as you look ahead into the future with excitement and determination, despite knocking knees, the Rubies want you to know we’ve got your back. In the coming months, we plan to post information that’ll help you build a fabulous career.
On the second Tuesday of each month, Katie Graykowski and myself (along with a few other Rubies backing us up with current information), will be...
September 5, 2019
Flash Fiction Friday!
If you browse the internet, as we writers are wont to do, flash fiction has several defining characteristics, most of which involve word count. You will find flash fiction—also known as sudden fiction, micro fiction, quick fiction, etc.—defined as any work of fiction that is under 1,000 words…sometimes. Definitions vary greatly. Some say FF is as many as 2,000 words, and some say it is as few as 50.
Whatever…Whatever word count you ch...
September 3, 2019
WATCH THAT FIRST LINE. IT’S A DOOZY!! (Or it better be!)
It was a dark and stormy night;
The first line of Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s 1830 novel Paul Clifford is perhaps the most well-known first line ever written. Why? Because it is often considered the very worst first line ever written. In fact, it is considered such a bad first line even a dog could have written it.
To be fair, the entire first line is…
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind whic...
