The Magic of Music and Storytelling
By: Rebecca E. Neely | Posted on June 15, 2018
There is a lot of overlap between music and books, both being rich and powerful forms of storytelling. It’s not often that we really stop and think about how closely they’re intertwined, and how one can be used to enhance or improve the other. Rebecca Neely is an author that has been affected by music her whole life, and is here to tell us about how she now uses it to help inspire her work as a novelist. Since the beginning of time, people the world over have embraced and celebrated the phenomenon of music in all its diverse forms. In turn, it embodies the essence of people by encompassing, reflecting, recording and communicating their diverse heritage, traditions, cultures, customs, races, ethnicities, languages and religions. Even geography, climate, economics and the use of technology contributes to the creation, artistry and performance of music. Indeed, as a whole it’s not only… Read More >
Characterization and Setting – It’s All in the Details
By: Naomi Bellina | Posted on June 8, 2018
When done properly, writing with rich detail and characterization is something a reader doesn’t even notice. It just pulls them into the author’s world and allows them to image the people and places that they visit. But how do writers create such vivid pictures? There are many techniques, and we asked Naomi Bellini to break some of them down for us. What she delivered is a great behind-the-scenes look at how it’s done that is interesting to both readers and authors. Don’t you love to fall so deep into a book you lose track of real life, and stay up way past your bedtime, because you have to read just one more chapter? Or look up from the page and totally expect to see the scenery and characters you were reading about? As authors, that’s what we hope happens when you read our stories. One way we accomplish this is… Read More >
Reader Expectations: To Meet Them You Must First Understand Them
By: Morgan Jones | Posted on May 11, 2018
One of the keys to selling your book is knowing your audience and what they are expecting. Not only will a failure to meet these expectations properly lead to less sales, they can also lead to poor reviews. That’s why we’ve asked USA Today Bestselling author Morgan Jones to walk us through how to make sure authors understand what the expectations of their readers are, and how to meet them. Have you ever sat down at your favorite coffee shop and opened up your laptop ready to dig into your next great novel, when you take a sip of the elixir of life only to discover that they got your order wrong? Are you the type of person to return to the counter and demand it be corrected, or are you the one that just sits in silence because you don’t want to deal with people? Personally, I don’t want… Read More >
What Makes Me Fall in Love with a Hero?
By: Samantha Westlake | Posted on September 1, 2016
Sometimes, when I pick up a romance novel by a new and unknown author, I know right away that I’ll love these characters. I can sense that I’d better clear my schedule, just so I can sit and read. Some heroes mesmerize me, so well-crafted that after just a few pages, I feel like I truly understand them, like they could step off of the page and sweep me into their arms. On the other hand, some romance books make me want to throw my Kindle across the room. If I had a girls’ brunch with the heroine of these tales, I’d just want to grab her by the shoulders, shake her to and fro, and shout, “What is wrong with you? He’s perfect! Why are you struggling with such an easy decision!?” What makes some heroes feel perfectly human, while others just seem uncannily perfect? Why do some characters… Read More >
