Fulfill God’s Calling on Your Life

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  Recently, I was bummed out by some in the church who seemed to imply writing fiction is not a holy calling. They as much as said that if we aren’t engaged in outright evangelism, then we aren’t fulfilling the Great Commission. I did some soul-searching. Told God, “I quit. I’m done (writing).” He immediately began sending me encouragement, reminding me that I write because He called me to it, and it is no less legitimate a calling than my call as a wife, mother, or friend. But a reader’s note to me the very next day capped it and…

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Tension and Conflict Part 2 – The Nature of Conflict

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Good morning from Gail Gaymer Martin. For the next few months, I’m talking about conflict and tension, the heart of fiction. It is what grabs the reader and makes the story memorable. Last week, I introduced the set up to tension  and talk about characters, their goals and the hooks that keep the reader turning pages.Today you read about the nature of conflict . While tension is the emotion of a novel, conflict is the power. It drives the story forward and causes the reader to hang on and go with the ride.Without conflict the scenes would be a slow walk through…

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Tension And Conflict Part I

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Welcome to CAN’s new website from Gail Gaymer Martin. Today I will begin a new series on Tension and Confict which is a driving force in fiction writing. I hope you enjoy the seven articles on this topic. The Set Up to Tension and Conflict I recently presented a workshop on tension and conflict. The topic offers many steps to writing a good novel. I began this workshop with the basic elements needed to begin a novel because it sets up how conflict begins. Conflict is a concept you know is vital to any story. It is what drives your…

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Backstory Is a Whole Other Story

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Hi, Dave Fessenden here with some thoughts on writing for this Friday blog. I am experienced in nonfiction—I wrote a book on the subject, in fact—but when it comes to fiction, I still have a lot to learn. My first novel is coming out this month (The Case of the Exploding Speakeasy), and though I’m getting a lot of good reviews, I am not sure I’m ready to teach about fiction. With that disclaimer, let me share an observation I had when reviewing a potential client’s fiction manuscript.

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Picture It? Perfect!

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Hello! Maureen Pratt here to bring another blog post to you. This time, I’m going to continue along the theme I began last month and talk more about capturing the visual aspects of writing – how working with a camera when you are writing can help you bring dazzling details to your work of fiction or non-fiction.   Sometimes, when we write (particularly fiction, but also nonfiction), we think that our work has to come from our imaginations. This is, of course, true to a point. But in order to make a place come alive to the reader, we have…

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