This week instead of my babbling, I’m going to post up a guest blog from the author “George Lasher”. His story, “The Forgetful Wizard” has appeared in two of our published anthologies: “Under the Stairs” and “Damn Faeries”. Thank you for writing in, George! I started writing in 2000 by penning a fan-fiction, Batman novel....Read More

When writing you need to build an image. Create a world and an environment and characters and… It’s all a lot of work. And of course, in that, you need to make the reader see all of these places and people, which is not as easy as it sounds. During my time writing, and editing,...Read More

I came to the conclusion of what to write today by watching far too many episodes of Prison Break and subsequently being unable to sleep. Which is a good thing. Why is this a good thing? Because it made me realize something that many of the manuscripts I read don’t have: Suspense. Suspense isn’t something...Read More

I would like to start this blog by apologizing for being late in posting this, I am out of town and my computer has been misbehaving. I’ve considered grounding it but I’m not certain how much good that would do. Next week’s entry may be late as well and for that I apologize. Now, on...Read More

Alright, this week’s blog is going to be about dialogue. It’s a problem for many authors and I think a large part of it has to do with the fact that in order to write good dialogue you have to write “incorrectly” and that just drives people up a tree. However, despite the fact that...Read More

One thing that I have found impossibly helpful is one of the easiest parts of my writing: the character profile. While it can be an incredibly complicated bit of note taking, it can also be as simple as their name, age, height, weight and so on. The series I am working on writing with my...Read More

Lately, I’ve noticed a large problem with understanding pacing. The last three manuscripts I’ve read have started obscenely slowly. I had one book that took ten chapters to have the main character leave home and get to his new house. Needless to say I nearly fell asleep. Part of the problem with pacing is that...Read More

Every writer approaches organizing their writing differently, however every successful writer needs to first organize it. One of the problems I’ve seen with submissions is that oftentimes the work – while interesting and potentially good – needs explanations made and needs to have the pacing and flow worked on. The best story can become a...Read More

One of the things I’ve noticed in editing is that the biggest stumbling block many writers have is research. Particularly with pieces that are not about the modern era. The old adage of “write what you know” is actually a good idea, but in the context of writing about something you can expand “what you...Read More