Category: Writing
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Are You a Plotter or a Pantser?
There are two types of writers of novels: plotters and pantsers. Plotters (sometimes called outliners) are plot focused — they outline their entire novel, often scene by scene, before beginning to write it. Their outline is a skeleton of their novel, letting them see the big picture and keeping their writing on track. Pantsers, on…
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The Self-Published Author’s Book Cover Design Guide
The Face Your Book Shows to the World Self-published authors are used to doing things in-house. Over the course of a typical business day they can wear many hats: writer, editor, marketer, salesman, secretary, Web designer, and bookkeeper. The addition of one more — book cover designer — doesn’t sound unreasonable, except that one has…
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On Clichés and Formulas in Romances
People often criticize the Romance fiction genre for its formularity — conventions that can make stories predictable — but the truth is it’s not just Romance titles that are formulaic. The majority of what we read and watch also follows a formula. I’m not just talking about the three-part structure of movies and books (inciting…
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An Appreciation of Popularity
The correlation between popularity and quality is tenuous at best. How often have excellent products died in the marketplace, while competing products of lesser quality have succeeded (I’m thinking Betamax, Kodak, and TiVo, to name a few)? How often, too, have movie stars achieved enormous popular success despite possessing little in the way of acting ability (my apologies to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone)? Popularity isn’t…
Paul Goddin 