One of the very first books I wrote – maybe actually the very first – got a review that basically said the female character had a nice character arc but that the male character hadn’t grown at all. Obviously. Because he’d been pretty much perfect to begin with. Which isn’t remotely realistic. And even though […]
Can Enemies Really Fall in Love? and #Giveaway
You know the story: two bitter rivals can’t stand each other one day—and the next day they’re in love (or at least in deep physical attraction). And I have to confess, it’s a story I don’t buy into. So why do I love the enemies to love trope, then? I’ll confess that I didn’t used […]
Putting Myself Into a Character and a Free 5-Book Ebook Collection for All Readers
My husband is the editor-in-chief of our publishing company. I don’t have much to do with that part of our world. I just write. But occasionally I have to take a more active role, especially when he’s publishing a romance novel. A couple of years ago, he was working with Amanda Tru on the second […]
Letting Go
Sometimes my stories start with a picture in my head. A scene that I can so vividly imagine it will take nothing to write it out. The book I’m working on now started out like that. A picture of a girl, wearing a dress, long hair flowing in the wind, walking along the side of […]
But I’m Not An Amish Widower!
Sometimes characters surprise me. Sometimes, it’s what they do. But every once in a while, the character who shows up first as I begin to think up a book does surprise me. In May, a four-year-old dream will come to life for me when A Season of Change releases, first in the series called Seasons […]
Heroes and Icebergs
What do icebergs and heroes have in common? No, I’m not talking about writing a leading man so hot he could melt the polar ice caps. I’m talking about character development. There’s a theory of writing, first espoused by Ernest Hemingway, that says a book is like an iceberg: the reader only sees a small […]