by: Staci Stallings Many years ago I wrote an article for a blog called “Be Do Have.” It was about an insight I had recently had about life. In the article, I explained that most people in life get this backward. They believe that they need to have before they can do and they need […]
Talking to Myself
by: Staci Stallings I know I’m not the only one whose life got flip-turned upside down this last month, and I think it’s kind of ironic that my post would come out today—April 18, 2020. Literally one month after insanity took over in my world. Now I have been through my share of times that […]
Of Elements & Experiments
by: Staci Stallings If you took high school Chemistry, you may recall how in lab you were given assignments in which you took various chemicals, mixed them a certain way, and their bonding created a different substance. Theoretically you could take 2 hydrogen atoms and mix them with 1 oxygen atom, and the result would […]
The Challenging Art of Weaving a Story
by: Staci Stallings Every book is a challenge. Some are more challenging than others, and some are challenging in different ways than others. For example, when I wrote a book about a dancer, I had to do lots of research about dance. I had to learn terms and how to put specific movements into words […]
Dressing Characters
by: Staci Stallings When readers think about the joy an author must feel when creating characters —the sheer exhilaration that here is a person under your complete control, that you can mold and form and make them do whatever you want (HAHA right!), I’m quite sure very few of them ever think about the issue […]
The Psychology of Getting to Know Characters
by: Staci Stallings So, my blog this month stems from a couple of questions I got from my Facebook group, Staci’s FAN-tastic Readers, The first comes from Christina Jay: “Maybe not much of a question, and it’s something you’ve talked about a bit here but you have really dug deep into psychology with the Imagination […]
The Truth about Lamp Lighting
by: Staci Stallings The Bible says that God’s Word is a lamp at my feet. My dad always said that God put the lamp at our feet and not on our head. That means we’re supposed to focus on the next step, not how we’re getting all the way down the tunnel. I’ve thought about […]
Backstory
By: Staci Stallings Many, many moons ago on a writing loop I was on at the time, there was a massive discussion about backstory. For those who don’t know, “backstory” refers to a character’s story that happened before the current story starts. Basically, where did this person come from and how did they get here? […]
What’s Your Superpower?
by: Staci Stallings I’m elbow-deep in The Imagination Series—writing Book 8 now. Book 7 is on preorder. Book 6 just released. So I’ve been thinking a lot about superpowers. In the series, there are six main-ish characters. They are friends from high school. Each one has a superpower, and the idea of the series is […]
Nothing Like a Challenge
by: Staci Stallings Okay, so you might not know this as a reader. It’s one of those first obstacles most writers have. It goes something like this: “There’s this song I want to use in my book. It’s a really popular song, and it will fit really well with this story. So, what do I […]