Writer Unboxed

No matter what you write – whether it’s romance, literary fiction, fantasy, or the increasingly popular genre of historical vampire chick-lit zombie western mystery – at some point each of you will be called upon to write about the same thing: yourself. There’s no avoiding it. If you’re writing with the goal of publication, it’s [...]

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Therese here. Today’s guest is a former monthly contributor with Writer Unboxed, NYT’s bestselling author Allison Winn Scotch. I’m so pleased to have her back here today to celebrate the release of her new novel, The Song Remains the Same. What’s the book about? One of only two survivors of a plane crash, Nell Slattery [...]

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I was recently lucky enough obtain an advance reading copy of Kate Forsyth’s new novel, Bitter Greens, to read during my Christmas break, and was bowled over by its magnificent blend of history, fairytale and sheer storytelling flair. Bitter Greens will be released this month by Random House Australia, and not only has Kate agreed [...]

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Will you ever run out of story ideas? What a laughable question. Of course not! There are more stories in your cocktail napkin collection than you’ll be able to use. And new story ideas–? Just read the newspaper. Cull from family lore. Do some research. Or just live life. Novel ideas are everywhere. True enough. [...]

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Therese here. I’m so pleased to bring you today’s returning guest and all around awesome human being, author Michelle Diener. Last year, Michelle’s debut novel, In a Treacherous Court, was published by the Gallery Books imprint of Simon & Schuster. Today the second book in her series, Keeper of the King’s Secrets–another historical thriller/suspense with [...]

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Last month I kicked off the Flip the Script series by advising writers to backwardize a tired writing cliche and Tell, Don’t Show. For April, let’s take another oft-heard, much-repeated bit of writing advice and turn it on its head. What are we constantly told? Write what you know. What should we try instead? Write [...]

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Therese here. We recently received a craft question in the WU mailbox, from a writer grappling with how best to show and tell emotion in fiction. I passed the question along to Dave King, editor and author of Self-Editing for Fiction Writers–a must-have book for every serious fiction writer, in my opinion–who kindly agreed to [...]

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Kath here. Today’s guest is WU community member Mary Incontro. Mary is a former federal prosecutor hard at work on her first novel, a work of legal fiction. During her career as a reporter on Capitol Hill, an attorney and public prosecutor, writing has been a huge part of Mary’s professional life; now she is ready [...]

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“Encumbered by idjits, we pressed on.” – John Fusco, Young Guns II We’ve been talking lately here on Writer Unboxed about coping with our devastating self-doubts as writers and, by contrast, our unreal expectations of the publishing industry. We writers often find ourselves swinging from one end of the spectrum to the other, from the [...]

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Kath here. Today’s guest is C. Hope Clark. She is editor of FundsforWriters, selected by Writer’s Digest for its 101 Best Websites for Writers for the past eleven years. She’s been industrious in platform building and social media outreach, and her newsletters reach 43,000 readers weekly. But the soul of her writing is in the mystery [...]

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Kath here. Today’s guest is Ellen Weeren. Ellen graduated from college with an English Writing degree 20 years ago and began her career as a law enforcement policy writer, newsletter editor, and conference planner. When her second child was born in 1999, she quit working and quit writing. Then, three years ago, her husband was [...]

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People often ask me for recommendations on resources for learning to write, and I’m happy to give them. There are some great guidebooks out there–any of our own Donald Maass’s books being some of the best, in my opinion. But I have a confession: I think the advice that books on writing give is very [...]

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