It’s not surprising that I have an opinion about the worst romantic cliches. In my day job, I’m often thinking about sweet contemporary romance tropes, and as a recovering workaholic, I’m planning to read a lot more romance—all genres, especially historical and paranormal—on my own time again. However, it’s no more than that: a personal opinion. And because so much
Category: Writing Matters
Hey friends! As I’m writing this, the next #PitMad event is this week. (You can find upcoming dates here at the Pitch Wars website.) What is PitMad? It’s one of the Twitter pitch contests where you can pitch your novel in one tweet. If an editor or agent likes your tweet, it means they’d like to see the novel. These
Hey there! Even though this list is called “best Instagram hashtags for authors,” the ones that are best for you will depend on who you are and what you write. The list will probably make you think of other writing hashtags, too. I wanted to write this post because I’m always interested in the benefits of social media for writers.
Hi, friends! Today I have an article on the Writer’s Digest website called “Forced Proximity: 50 Reasons for Your Characters To Be Stuck Together.” I’ve blogged before about how helpful it is to a romance novel plot to give your couple an actual reason to see each other a lot, and as I explain in the article, forced proximity can
People often ask, “What are some good romance novels for men?” Some guys actually do read romance—they make up about 15% of the readership, in fact. But if you’re a guy who’s never read the genre and you’re curious, or if you’re a female romance reader who would like to introduce romance to a man in your life, here are
I’m sharing a very basic character development worksheet today because I think it’s one great way to get to know your characters better! There are some very complicated worksheets out there, but even a simple one like this can lead you to better insights and even inspire plot points. I’m also sharing a trick for making a character lovable
What is the definition of a fiction genre? It’s simply a category of literature. It determines, among other things, what shelf it sits on in a bookstore or a library. For readers, it’s good to be aware of different fiction genres. Sometimes we can widen our horizons and read a book in a genre we don’t often explore. For writers,