A Different Take on Manuscript Analysis

Ciao, amici! When my turn rolls around to post at Story Empire, I almost always tell you how I do something or how the industry does it: dialogue, media kits, story bibles, basic plots... I usually revert back to professor-mode and "instruct" you on the terminology and my and/or the writing community's methodologies. Today, I'm going …

A Word About Research

Ciao, amici! I should be writing, but I  took a break after I got sucked down the world's largest rabbit hole. Research. I don't mind doing it. In fact, it's probably kind of a sickness, but I actually enjoy it. Most of the time. Not so much when what I need isn't available anywhere. Queue …

Friday Book Share: Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine

Ciao, SEers. It's time for a Friday book share. Today, I'm going to talk about a book from the psychological thriller genre, Stillhouse Lake by Rachael Caine. (If you read my personal blog, you already saw my review of this plus the rest of the series. If you don't follow me but are interested in …

Writing Your Novel’s Blurb

Ciao, amici. We're wrapping up the Story Bible series of posts today. If you missed one or more of the posts, you can find them, in order of post date, by clicking the following links: Story Bible Overview Series Premise Character Sheets Setting Descriptions Outlining Today, we're discussing how to write the back-of-book blurb. You're …

Friday Writing Question: Hooks

Ciao, SEers. It's my turn for the Friday Writing Question, and I think I have an interesting one for you. It's interesting to me, anyway, since I agonize over my novel openings. Hooks. More specifically, do you think they need to be the very first sentence? First paragraph? First page? Is the end of the …