Anytime you pick up a work of fiction, you’ll find a plot. Writers often talk about plotting. Even way back, it sounded boring to me. Too similar to an outline. But when I sat down to write my recent novels, the first, Joe the Dreamer: The Castle and the Catapult, published in 2013; The Lady […]
Behind the Scenes: Author Bonnie Engstrom discusses naming her characters
Common questions people ask me: How do you decide what to name your characters? And how do you plot or plan your story? I don’t decide what to name my characters. In the Candy Cane Girls series the names just burst into my head, except for Noelle in the series’ debut. I knew she ‘needed’ […]
Behind the Scenes: Author Dawn Cahill cooks up a plot as part of a class
Picture this: Author wannabe just received professional feedback on her first novel. Not good! Wannabe feels downcast, and thinks, Maybe I just need to take a class. So she signs up for an online Fiction Writing course from Fiction Master himself, Jerry Jenkins. In Assignment 1 she’s told to list a half-dozen ideas for novels […]