Dear Writer

This episode of Dear Writer, Sarah tackles the topic of the author's writing style and voice, with part one focussing primarily on the author style. With Ashley absent due to illness, Sarah flies solo and attempts to discuss what writing style is and why it is important, the development of our own personal styles, and tips to discover or hone your unique writing style.

This fortnight we welcomed Paulette Stout to our author spotlight segment. Paulette is a contemporary women’s fiction author based in Massachusetts. Paulette was raised by a single dad in Manhattan, in a biracial/interfaith family, and she weaves this experience into her books. Her writing features diverse characters with the backdrop of New York City. Through her novels, Paulette includes a range of social issues that she feels are too often ignored by society. Paulette believes that fiction is a fantastic way to explore the lives and experiences of those different than ourselves.

This week, we continue our discussion about writing action scenes. We chat about the importance of pacing your action scenes, why action scenes are critical to character development, how to balance dialogue with action, and we give you our tips for writing compelling action sequences.

This fortnight on Dear Writer we were delighted to welcome Sue Tidwell. Sue is an award winning memoir author based in Idaho. Her book, Cries of the Savannah, is a passionate travel memoir about her adventure in Africa. The tagline of her book reads, An adventure. An awakening. A journey to understanding African Wildlife Preservation. When not at the keyboard, Sue can be found atop a paddleboard, enjoying the antics of her grandchildren, or engaged in the latest outdoor excursion with her husband.

This week, we talk about action scenes before taking a deep dive into writing fight scenes! We discuss the types of fight scenes, our challenges writing them, and what we think a compelling fight scene should contain.

In our author spotlight this week we welcomed Mark Love to the show. Mark is a mystery/romance writer based in Michigan. He has released a number of books in his two ongoing series; The Jamie Richmond Mysteries, and The Jefferson Chene Mysteries. Outside of his writing, Mark leads a busy work life. In addition to his career in business, he was once a freelance reporter at a local suburban newspaper. He is also a professor at his local college, and has facilitated writing groups with those who enjoy writing as much as he does.

This week, we continue our chat about writing deep scenes. We discuss the importance of character backstory and internal thoughts in making deep scenes that pack a punch. We talk about how to avoid making your scenes sound cringey and give you some of our tips for writing emotional scenes.

This week we had another of our author spotlight episodes, and we welcomed Dan Rice onto the show. Dan is a young adult urban fantasy author based in the West Coast of the US. Dan’s award winning debut novel, Dragons Walk Among Us, was published in 2021, with the sequel, The Blood of Faeries, released in February earlier this year. Dan hopes to eventually achieve his dream of making a living writing speculative fiction.

This week, we talk about writing the keystone emotional scenes in your novel. We discuss why these scenes are important, how to build up to one of these scenes, and how we draw on our personal experiences to make these scenes feel authentic.

This week on our author spotlight we hosted Pamela S Thibodeaux. Pamela is an award winning author and has published both fiction and non-fiction books. Her contemporary romance fiction novels feature flawed, true to life characters, and have Pamela’s Christian faith and hope interwoven into the narratives, while Pamela’s non-fiction writing features her faith and spiritual journey. Pamela’s goals are to continue to write and share stories that inspire and entertain, as well as glorifying God.