You’ve followed your creative urge, spend hour upon hour for months curled over your keyboard pecking out words, paragraphs, and chapters, and you’ve finally finished a novel. You’ve shared your accomplishment with friends and family, and now they’re starting to call you a writer–an author. Maybe you laugh and agree. Or possibly you glow with […]
The Bitterness Bug
Nobody likes bug bites. They itch, they swell, and sometimes they become infected. These bites affect our physical bodies in ways we easily see and feel. The bitterness bug, on the other hand, burrows under our mental skin. It bites in unobtrusive places where we can’t see the marks, yet they still itch and annoy […]
Lessons from the Slush Pile
Although good news rarely comes from the slush pile, we can find many lessons about the craft of writing buried within it. One of our goals here at Castle Gate Press is to encourage new authors, so even though we can’t send personalized feedback to everyone who submits to us, I would like to share […]
A Word about Suspense
You’ve got a great story idea, characters your readers will love, and a fantastic surprise twist. You can’t wait to start writing and lead your readers along the path of suspense that builds up to the big reveal at some point late in the story. Most of all, it tickles your stomach to think of […]
The basis of a strong plot
Writers, does your main character have an overriding goal for the middle section of your book? One that makes him or her reach outside his comfort zone, again and again? In a sense, could you call him a hero on a journey? Or is your main character dodging something, reacting to the actions of others, […]
Writers, how to generate sympathy in your readers
Stringed instruments have a little-known special ability: sympathetic vibration. Each string is tuned to a particular pitch, and when something nearby generates a sound exactly on that pitch, the string will hum along. For example, you can get a violin, a harp, or a piano to do this. Some unusual instruments have special strings that […]
Fleshing out your research by author Carole Brown
“He had a tattoo on his arm.” Wow. That tells us a lot. Or not. What if we phrase it like this: “. . . the big eye rippled on his arm, never blinking, only staring.” The first one gives us information: A man has a tattoo on his arm. Basic. Factual. Interesting? No. The […]
The Editor vs. the Writer
Editing and writing are two sides of the same coin. Both manipulate the written word to craft a story, yet they are very different. Writing creates words and stories. Editing takes words already crafted into stories and fine-tunes them. As a matter of fact, the two activities are so different they even use different sides of the […]
The writing craft: drawing fiction from real life
Today we hear from writer Emilie Hendryx. Drawing from real life as a writer is not only helpful but also crucial in my opinion. What you draw out is what matters. Taking your cue from real life, use these three things to strengthen and enliven your fiction. 1) Motivation Read news stories or talk with […]
Things I want in a middle-grade Christian fantasy, by agent Sally Apokedak
I get a lot, a lot, a lot of Christian middle grade fantasy in my inbox. And I would love to sell some of that. Here’s how you can move to the top of the slush pile: Pay attention to the mechanics If you have trouble with verb tenses or points of view or misplaced […]