by Bonnie S. Calhoun In my novel Cooking the Books, I have several unique characters with a particular speech pattern for each person. Listen to the kids, and how they talk, listen to your teens with the text speech…IDK. Dialogue is nothing more than having a conversation. How hard can that be? “Yo G, it is, what it is!” Well …
3 Steps to Marketing your Book without Breaking into Hives
by Cara C. Putman This spring has been a whirlwind of book marketing. With novellas in January and May and a trade in April, it’s taken a lot of time. A friend recently called me a networking superstar, and I almost spewed my sweet tea across my computer monitor. When it’s time to call for help marketing a book, I …
What If One of Your Characters Is Not… um… Human?
by Rachel Hauck We spent a lot of time around the hallowed halls of ACFW teaching the craft of writing. As we should. It’s our goal and our mission. Character development is key to any good novel. Because after all, it’s people we care about. It’s people who tell stories. I have a saying: Tell the story between the quotes. …
April New Releases
More in-depth descriptions of these books can be found on the ACFW Fiction Finder website. The Mother Road by Jennifer AlLee — Sometimes, the end of the road is just the beginning… (Women’s Fiction from Abingdon Press). Race Against Time by Christy Barritt — Were it not for her cop neighbor, widowed mother Madison Jacobs would be dead. Thankfully, Detective …
Why A Magazine?
by Mike Ehret Editor – ACFW Journal Magazine I admit that was my response when first approached by ACFW President Margaret Daley about being involved with what became the ACFW Journal. In the digital age, it seemed like a backward step. But that’s the beauty of vision. What may seem illusory to others, or even Ludditian, becomes concrete and almost …
The Trouble with Comparison
by Keisha Gilchrist-Broomes I do not own a Kindle for one reason. I love books. I don’t merely love to read books, I love the books themselves. I love the smell of ink, paper, and binding. I like to feel the weight of the book in my hands. I want to glide my fingers over the edge of a paper …
To Have or Not to Have…Patience
by Becky Jacoby How often do I often shoot myself in the foot? When it comes to learning the craft of fiction writing…too often. I push myself hard. Suddenly, I think I am a Replicator, an Ancient or have special powers. That I ought to learn at light-speed just because I ache to. Why can’t my desire to learn faster …
Five Reasons Why Contests are Important
by Beverly Varnado Before I attended my first writer’s conference several years ago, I wrote several articles and devotions for an unpublished writer’s competition sponsored by the conference. I worked and reworked the pieces, making sure I’d made them the best I could. Then I sat on them. As the final deadline for submission approached, my nervousness grew. How could …
Stick to the Point of View
by Jill Elizabeth Nelson The term Point of View is defined as a position from which something is considered or evaluated, a standpoint, or a place of perception. In fiction writing, the position from which anything is considered in any given scene should be the character through whose head we are viewing events. This particular character is the point-of-view character. …
Book Review: “A Most Unsuitable Match”
Title: A Most Unsuitable Match Author: Stephanie Grace Whitson Publisher: Bethany House Date: Aug 2011 ISBN: 978-0764208812 Genre: Historical Romance Reviewed by: Lena Nelson Dooley I’ve read several of Stephanie Grace Whitson’s books and loved each one. Her newest release is an interesting journey from civilized Missouri to the wilds of Montana in 1869. The unique characters leapt from the …