What is your greatest fear? What would it take to face that fear, and make the shift from from fear to love? Halloween, El Dia de Los Meurtos, All Hallows Eve—these traditions offer a great opportunity to reflect on our faith walk and the extent to which we are allowing the Holy Spirit to move us away from fear into His perfect love. The journey itself could spark a great story. Anytime I notice myself living a little smaller, a little less joyfully, a little less confidently—I know it is time for me to stop, pray, and reflect. I ask…
Tag: writing craft
This is our archive pageThe Writer Who Almost Wasn’t
Proof of God’s power and sense of humor are both evident in my story of getting published. Readers would probably be surprised to learn that despite majoring in English Literature and graduating magna cum laude, I was too afraid to take a Creative Writing class. It wasn’t that I didn’t have story ideas—I just lacked the confidence and, I believed, the time, to write them. (I worked full time and was convinced it would take an enormous amount of time to do it well, if I could indeed even do it.) But story ideas wouldn’t go away. And after waiting…
Dreamy Ideas
Where do you get your ideas? We writers know, love, and sometimes hate this age-old question. My Jo Oliver thriller series started with a desire to write compelling stories of triumph, choice, and the power of emergent faith and community. Each story was fueled by a strong character, a plot idea, or an idea of what justice might look like via a twisty series of events. And while I am playing around with my next installment, I find myself distracted by new dreams. For the past year or so, I’ve been toying with a new story that I finally had…
There’s an App for That
by Judith Couchman Recently I ate lunch with Heather, a former coaching client who became a friend. She talked about an app that helps her learn to write better, catching mistakes and suggesting ways to improve. I recognized Heather’s sincere desire to write well, and that impressed me. Many writers new to the craft want to skip over writing principles and dart straight to publishing and social networking. Heather felt so excited about this method for improving her manuscript, I couldn’t help but absorb her enthusiasm. Later at home, online I researched writing apps. After typing “Writing Apps” into my…
Cut, Snip, Tighten by Gail Gaymer Martin for CAN
Historical Post by Gail Gaymer Martin Cut, Snip, Tighten I have been blessed to have been given an amazing career as a writer of Christian fiction, and in my days of creating stories that I hope will touch your hearts, I have learned so much about writing stories readers can enjoy. Most people do not understand the amount of detail and craft that goes into being a writer, and most people do not sell their first novel. I did, but not before it went through “refining fire.” I knew nothing about writing fiction when I began to write. My first…
Proofreading like a Pro: #63
Hi! I’m Kathy Ide. In addition to being a published author, I’m a full-time professional freelance editor. For CAN, I’m blogging about tips for writers based on the manuscripts I edit.
So You Want to Write for Children?
When people find out I write books for children, their response often goes something like this: “Oh, how fun! I have always wanted to write a children’s book.” Writing for children is fun, but fun does not mean easy. And the more you learn, the harder it gets! If you are someone who wants to try writing for children, here are a few basic tips on how to get started.
Writing Fiction Using Real Locations
Welcome to the CAN Blog from Gail Gaymer Martin @ www.gailgaymermartin.com. Today I decided to talk about one way my writing has changed in the past few years. Although I wrote about places I knew, I didn’t worry about accuracy and often I used a fictitious location so I didn’t have to worry about accuracy. Writing Fiction Using Real Locations But over time, I learned if I want to write real, I needed to visit the location of my novel. While creating a fictitious location can be easier, I’ve found that fans love to read about real places since…
Where to Begin the Story
Hello from Crystal Bowman! This blog post is for those who want to write fiction for children, and even for those who don’t because the more you know, the more you grow. Most of my books are for the children’s devotional or Bible storybook market. However, I have written several fiction picture books as well as few dozen I Can Read! books, so I want to share something I learned many years ago in my novice years of writing. The mistake many writers make (and I used to be one of them) is to write an explanatory introduction to “set…
Not All Conflicts Sustain A Novel by Gail Gaymer Martin
Good morning at Christian Author Network from Gail Gaymer Martin. Last month I provide information about Conflicts That Lifts the Bar, but this month, we’ll talk about conflicts again but the topic is: Not All Conflicts Sustain A Novel. I hope you find this information useful. Not All Conflicts Sustain An Entire Novel Since I’ve taught writing fiction for years and wrote the Writers Digest book, Writing The Christian Romance, I have received questions from writers about many elements and techniques of writing that they struggle with. Below is one of the questions and my response. Question: This question is about…
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