I would guess that most readers don’t really want to analyze the stories they read; they just want to sink into them and enjoy them. I don’t know anyone who deliberately chooses a book based on whether it’s a plot-based story or a character-based story. So what’s the difference and why does it matter? Continue reading “Plot-Driven vs. Character-Driven Stories”
Month: March 2015
Book Brief: Dead Girls Don’t Blog
Dead Girls Don’t Blog
by Pamela Frost Dennis
Genres: mystery, amateur sleuth
Word count: 81,240
Doing the right thing can get you killed…
After nursing her husband through cancer, and then getting dumped for a “pre-schooler”, Katy McKenna is ready for a major life reboot. First on her agenda is to revive the graphic arts career she suspended several years ago to follow her was-band’s dreams. Not easy in a down economy.
Her life takes a dramatic turn when she stumbles upon a newspaper story about an impending parole hearing for the man who raped and murdered her high school friend sixteen years ago. Sickened that he could soon be preying on other young girls, Katy sets out to make sure this doesn’t happen, not realizing the imminent peril she’s about to unleash upon herself.
Meanwhile, Grandma Ruby is hell-bent on finding Katy a hunky transition man and her BFF is nagging her to blog about her anger issues. Katy would rather shoot her ex, but jail time is not in her plans, so she’s going to give it a try.
Dead Girls Don’t Blog is available at Amazon.com and Amazon UK.
Telegraphing Versus Foreshadowing
First, as an editor, it makes me a little squirmy to write blog posts about “how” to write. Beyond basic grammar and clarity, the rules of writing, especially in fiction, are a kind of flexible armature and differ according to the author, the genre, and the situation. However, I’ve been seeing something in fiction lately that makes me want to slam my head against the keyboard: telling readers in quite unsubtle terms that the plot is about to take a shocking turn. The device is commonly called telegraphing. Continue reading “Telegraphing Versus Foreshadowing”
Instagram: Should You Be On It?
Social media is a big part of our lives. There’s no getting around it if you are publishing and writing. The last thing you want to do is add another platform. However, as you watch the pop culture world around us, there is no denying the impact of Instagram. It’s ubiquitous in mainstream media. But, is it right for us as authors?
Let’s look at some of the stats:
- 300 million active users
- 70 million posts per day
- 70% of users are outside the United States
- Average time on the site by users is twenty-one minutes per day
- Forty-one percent of the Internet users age 16-24 use Instagram while usage among 24-34 is at 35%.
At first look, the numbers may mean different things to different audiences. If you are a young adult author, Instagram may be the place to be. Here’s an interesting number to back that up: Continue reading “Instagram: Should You Be On It?”