I watched The Hunger Games last night. I read the book before the movie came out, and I’ve seen the movie a few times. So I obviously knew what would happen. Still, a certain scene got me. By that, I mean it made me weepy. I’m not usually a weepy individual, so the moment surprised…
A few days ago, this article came out on Consumerist.com. If you don’t want to click over and read it right this second, allow me to summarize: There are companies that sell five-star reviews to authors, and Amazon is suing these companies. I think almost everyone would agree that paying for fake 5-star reviews is…
This weekend is Hook Queue Weekend in my critique group. The queue only exists on the first weekend of every month, and its sole purpose is to determine if your submission has a good hook or not. It’s brutal. Allow me to explain a bit before I get to the point. Anyone reading submissions is…
Warning: this post contains book spoilers. Run away if you haven’t read the book. I’m sometimes asked which character in The Fourth Descendant is my favorite. As I was writing, my answer changed, I think because I spent more time with one or another for a while as the story progressed. One week was Jonah’s week. Then…
One of my favorite books is Stephen King’s On Writing, and one of my favorite parts of that book is when he describes the rabbit. Remember that part? After a few sentences, readers pictured a white rabbit with a blue number eight on it. King used the illustration to describe the telepathic nature of reading and…
Hello, readers! Welcome to the second post of The Fourth Descendant’s bonus material. This one goes hand-in-hand with the first one. I called that one the Bones, where I described how the structure of the story came into being. This one is the Meat. It includes the subplots, characterization, and emotion that resonate with readers. The…
Welcome to the first post of The Fourth Descendant’s bonus features. These bonus posts are for those who have read the book. If you haven’t read the book and plan to, turn back now! This post contains spoilers. Come back after you’ve read it. If you haven’t read the book and don’t plan to, I’m…
Yes, the title was intentional. I borrowed it from the department of redundancy department. Telling a story in a concise way should be a goal of the novelist. I say should, because based on the length of some books and what I’ve seen both in published works and in works I’ve critiqued, this isn’t always…
There’s a bit of a misconception out there regarding authors. I know because I had this bright idea before I published that I would write something like “10% of all royalties will be donated to such and such organization” in the front or back matter of my book. Philanthropic, no? Another author told me it’s…
Editing is a vitally important step in the writing process. I don’t know about the rest of you, but my first drafts suuuuuuck. Did you see that episode of Mythbusters where they literally took a piece of shit and polished it to a lovely sheen? That’s the editing process. Though one would hope that the…
Allison Maruska 