My Courses

On your website promoting your book, including an interview with the author can prove valuable. The interview allows readers to learn more about you, and that increased intimacy can lead to book sales. If an interview has been published of you in a newspaper, magazine or blog, acquire permission to post it and then do so.…

“Every heart is made of stories.” – Jennifer Donnelly “The reason we tell stories…is to keep each other from being afraid.” – Barry Lopez “Stories are the currency of human contact.” – Robert McKee “The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.” – Muriel Rukeyser “If you don’t know the trees you may be lost…

Once you’ve reached a certain level of competence as a writer, you then must work hard to achieve your goals. For a writer, there’s nothing nuanced about hard work. It simply means showing up every day at the computer keyboard and actually writing. How many words or pages do you turn out per day, on average?…

Science fiction stories typically revolve arise from a novum, a scientifically plausible concept that is a “reality” in the tale. The novum might be an mechanical device like robot servants, artificial intelligence, or faster-than-light spacecraft; it also can be a hypothetical idea such as “The Earth is a scientific experiment run by aliens to determine the meaning…

Often I see these two homophones mixed up; some writers seem to believe that like after all, there’s only one right word and that it has duo meanings. That isn’t the case. “All ready” means “entirely ready.” For example, The paratroopers were all ready to jump. “Already” means “previously” or “so soon.” You might write, I cleaned the…

Every story is told from someone’s perspective. This someone is known as the viewpoint character. For example, in “The Matrix” movie series, the story is seen through the perspective of Neo, the tales’ hero. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” it’s through the perspective of Nick Carraway, a bond salesman who is Gatsby’s neighbor. Usually…

Science fiction stories typically arise from a novum, a scientifically plausible concept that is a “reality” in the tale. The novum might be an mechanical device like robot servants, artificial intelligence, or faster-than-light spacecraft; it also can be a hypothetical idea such as “The Earth is a scientific experiment run by aliens to determine the meaning of…

Since dialogue in fiction is contrived, a challenge facing authors is to find ways to make it sound realistic. Try these techniques:• Pay attention to speech rhythms – Read the dialogue out loud to see if it sounds natural. If it sounds like you’ve written a homework assignment or like the characters are too dumb to say more…

“I don’t think anyone should write their autobiography until after they’re dead.” – Samuel Goldwyn “If my clone writes my biography, is it really an autobiography?” – Jarod Kintz “Autobiography begins with a sense of being alone. It is an orphan form.” – John Berger “A poet’s autobiography is his poetry. Anything else is just a footnote.” – Yevgeny…