Tara Maya's Tales

This tip is from 30 Day Novel .    Writer’s block is almost always a red flag warning you about some problem with the novel. (The only other cause for writer’s block is severe personal stress, which may be negative, like a divorce, or positive, like a move, but either way absorbs all your mental energy. However, that’s outside the scope of these Tips. If you are in such a situation, give yourself a break and take care of the issue first.) One of these red flags, and one that I’ve faced many times, is Ignorance. You sit down ready to write a scene…it’s right there in your outline… it should be no problem. You lift your fingers, like a piano prodigy, to wrest sweet story music from your keyboard, and… Nothing.  The scene is not working because there’s something that’s stumping you. For me, it’s often something like the place and time of the scene. Sometimes it’s a deeper problem though. Occasionally, it’s something god-awful like a Plot Abyss At The Heart of the Whole Da...

  A motif is a repetitive design in art. It's fairly obvious what this means in the visual arts; a motif is a repeating squiggle or shape, often tiled or layered over and over throughout the painting or mosaic. In non-figerative art, the motif may be the dominant feature. The term "narrative motif" is a metaphor borrowed from the visual arts, but it's a little less obvious how to employ a motif in fiction than it is in art. A "motif" can also overlap with other  writing techniques, like "metaphors," "archetypes," and "themes," since a motif can be all of those at  once. Motifs reenforce archetypes and  themes through the use of interlinked metaphors. In certain genres, particularly fantasy, motifs are ready at hand because the entire genre is archetypal by its nature: magic, quests, lost princes, warrior princesses, assassins, dragons and thieves... virtually every fantasy trope is replete with a rich history of myth and legend ...

About Rayne Hall Rayne Hall  has published more than forty books under different pen names with different publishers in different genres, mostly fantasy, horror and non-fiction. Recent books include  Storm Dancer  (dark epic fantasy novel),  13 British Horror Stories ,  Six Scary Tales Vol 1, 2, 3, 4  (creepy horror stories),  Six Historical Tales  (short stories),  Six Quirky Tales  (humorous fantasy stories),  Writing Fight Scenes ,  The World-Loss Diet ,  Writing About Villains ,  Writing About Magic  and  Writing Scary Scenes  (instructions for authors). She holds a college degree in publishing management and a masters degree in creative writing. Currently, she edits the  Ten Tales  series of multi-author short story anthologies:  Bites: Ten Tales of Vampires, Haunted: Ten Tales of Ghosts, Scared: Ten Tales of Horror, Cutlass: Ten Tales of Pirates, Beltane: Ten Tales of Witchc...

Buy Writing Scary Scenes A guest post by Rayne Hall Have you written a horror story, or are you working on a frightening scene? Here's a professional technique for making it even scarier. Solitary adventures are more dangerous than group adventures. In nature, an animal which becomes separated from the herd is vulnerable to predators. To make your scene scary, let your heroine face the danger alone. The more you isolate your protagonist, the more frightening the scene becomes. Think of as many ways as possible to make her even more cut off from rescue and moral support. I'm using “she” in this article, but of course everything also applies to male characters. SEND THE ALLIES AWAY Give your protagonist a reason why she faces this danger on her own. Perhaps she has no choice: the little girl is alone in the house because her parents have gone to the theatre. The hero's guide and friends have been killed leaving him as the only survivor. The explorer's...

A guest post by Rayne Hall. Here are some techniques for creating powerful, exciting, realistic battle scenes. The biggest challenge in writing a battle scene is the point of view. To make the experience exciting and moving, it's best to stick to the perspective of a single fighter. However, the individual soldier can't see what goes on a few feet from him, let alone what's happening at the other end of the battlefield or how the sun dyes the horizon bloody red. Here's a possible solution: Show the terrain before the fight begins, and have the general give a pep talk explaining the overall strategy. Once the fighting is over, show the battlefield and have your point of view character talk with his comrades about the implications. Do you want to involve the reader's emotions? Stack the odds against your heroes. The readers' natural sympathies lie with the smaller army. The greater you can make the numerical difference, the better. The evil overlord...

Rayne Hall   has published more than forty books under different pen names with different publishers in different genres, mostly fantasy, horror and non-fiction. Recent books include   Storm Dancer  (dark epic fantasy novel),  Six Historical Tales Vol 1, Six Scary Tales Vol 1, 2 and 3   (mild horror stories),   Six Historical Tales   (short stories),   Six Quirky Tales   (humorous fantasy stories),   Writing Fight Scenes   and   Writing Scary Scenes   (instructions for authors). She holds a college degree in publishing management and a masters degree in creative writing. Currently, she edits the  Ten Tales  series of multi-author short story anthologies:  Bites: Ten Tales of Vampires, Haunted: Ten Tales of Ghosts, Scared: Ten Tales of Horror, Cutlass: Ten Tales of Pirates, Beltane: Ten Tales of Witchcraft, Spells: Ten Tales of Magic  and more.   Her short  online classes for writers ...

Rayne Hall has published more than forty books under different pen names with different publishers in different genres, mostly fantasy, horror and non-fiction. Recent books include Storm Dancer (dark epic fantasy novel), Six Historical Tales Vol 1, Six Scary Tales Vol 1, 2 and 3 (mild horror stories), Six Historical Tales (short stories), Six Quirky Tales (humorous fantasy stories), Writing Fight Scenes and Writing Scary Scenes (instructions for authors). She holds a college degree in publishing management and a masters degree in creative writing. Currently, she edits the Ten Tales series of multi-author short story anthologies: Bites: Ten Tales of Vampires, Haunted: Ten Tales of Ghosts, Scared: Ten Tales of Horror, Cutlass: Ten Tales of Pirates, Beltane: Ten Tales of Witchcraft, Spells: Ten Tales of Magic and more.   Her short online classes for writers intense with plenty of personal feedback. Writing Fight Scenes, Writing Scary Scenes, Writing about Magic and...

A great editing technique on  QueryTracker Blog : First, I take an honest inventory of the areas of writing that aren't my strong suit. I make very sure to assign each of those a color. Then I look at what things I might go a little overboard on and add those to the list. Lastly, I add the things that are important structurally to the story. Then I assign each item a color. So my list might look something like this: Dialogue (You could even do separate colors for each main character if you wanted to.) Description Metaphors Similes Adjectives Adverbs To Be Verbs Pacing Characterization (Here, I would assign each major character and important side characters a color. If I'm running low on colors, I would assign a color and add bolding, italicizing, changing the font, or underlining.) Inciting Incident Clues that tie in together (I would be specific here. For example: All the clues that hint at the hero's destiny.) World Building Story Arcs (I'd assign ea...

Rayne Hall  has published more than forty books under different pen names with different publishers in different genres, mostly fantasy, horror and non-fiction. Recent books include  Storm Dancer  (dark epic fantasy novel),  Six Historical Tales Vol 1, Six Scary Tales Vol 1, 2 and 3  (mild horror stories),  Six Historical Tales  (short stories),  Six Quirky Tales  (humorous fantasy stories),  Writing Fight Scenes  and  Writing Scary Scenes  (instructions for authors). She holds a college degree in publishing management and a masters degree in creative writing. Currently, she edits the  Ten Tales  series of multi-author short story anthologies:  Bites: Ten Tales of Vampires, Haunted: Ten Tales of Ghosts, Scared: Ten Tales of Horror, Cutlass: Ten Tales of Pirates, Beltane: Ten Tales of Witchcraft, Spells: Ten Tales of Magic  and more.   Her short  onlineclasses for writers  inte...

"I've caught nothing, but I've had fun fishing, and that's what counts." Most of us are familiar with the terms "pantser" and "outliner." Pansters write by the seat of their pants. Outliners make lists. Panstsers muddle through. Outliners plan ahead. Most of us combine the two approaches, and (little secret) a lot of us who start as pansters learn to be outliners. But here's another way of looking at it. Some writers define their goals in terms of input and some in terms of output . Output goals define what outcome you want to achieve. Here are some examples: 1. I will write one flash fiction story per day. 2. I will write one chapter a week. 3. I will finish a novel in six months. The benefit of output goals is obvious. When you check off your output goal on your TO DO list, you have a completed project or part of a project: a finished story, scene, chapter or novel. Yay! That's wonderful. If you were a fisherman, you...

Today we have a guest post by Rayne Hall. Rayne Hall is a traditionally published author, who has recently made the move to self-publishing for her latest dark fantasy Storm Dancer, which is only $0.99 on Amazon and definitely worth reading. She also teaches writing classes, which I highly recommend. She is an excellent teacher. You can find out more about the classes below, or on this site:  www.sites.google.com/site/writingworkshopswithraynehall/ Creating Believable Magician Characters by Rayne Hall Does your story have a magician - a shaman, a sorcerer, a necromancer, a ritual wizard, a theurgist, a miracle worker or a witch? The traits which make them effective magicians shape their personality. Here are ten tips for their characterisation. Your magician should have most - not necessarily all - of these character traits. Although I'm using the female pronoun for this article, everything applies regardless of gender. 1. Intelligent Magic requires a...

I was fortunate enough to attend the Los Angeles Festival of Books. Misque Press didn't have a booth, although I did bump into some fans and signed some print books. That was pretty sweet. I was also given a free (unsolicited) book myself. I wasn't too surprised to flip over the book and see that the imprint was AuthorHouse, a vanity press. I accepted the book because (1) I never turn down a free book and (2) I was curious to know if this was actually a viable way to gain new readers. Is it worth the expense and trouble for an author who is vanity-press published, self-published or with a small press to foist books upon passing strangers? My conclusion? No. The problem is that passing strangers are likely to include only a tiny proportion of your target audience. This book, for instance, was not my usual genre. I'm still trying to figure out what genre it is. It's not even clear if it is supposed to be fiction or non-fiction. The back blurb doesn't tell me, ...

Young writers often suppose that style is a garnish for the meat of prose, a sauce by which a dull dish is made palatable. Style has no such separate entity; it is nondetachable, unfilterable.  - Strunk and White, p.69 For my academic course, we've been asked to revisit some of the Classics of Good Writing. Strunk and White. Bird by Bird. I've read both before, of course, but haven't re-read them in ages, and it was good to do so. I remembered endless rules for commas in Strunk and White, as it turns out an exaggeration of my memory. This time I merely skimmed the grammar rules, which I know, or know to look up if I need them. Instead, I enjoyed the essay on style. Even more than what Strunk and White said, I enjoyed how they said it, how they demonstrated in writing what they demanded of writing. TECHNICAL NOTE: Nooksters, I do not know what the problem is with Initiate and Taboo going up on the nook. My Tech Guy uploaded them for me, but the administration page stil...

I'm writing a scene with high tension. A character has just been forced to choose between the life of her grandchild or her child. In her anger, at the world, at herself, she lashes out at an ally. How do I write this scene without slipping into melodrama? It's espeically difficult because the ally is a talking bear. Any advice? Tips? Tricks?

Do you ever re-write the same scene from the PoV of more than one character? Do you include the variation in the novel, or just use it for reference? I do both. A lot of my stories play with Point of View. Not everyone in my world sees things the same way -- literally, because depending on their powers, they can see some forms of magic (some Chromas) but not others. So as I comb over my new version of Chapter One, I am examining the meeting between my main character, Dindi, and the arch-nemesis of the whole series, Lady Death. A bit of my dialogue is overblown and melodramatic, and I don't want that. Plus, Lady Death knows a great many things Dindi would like to know, but  Lady Death has no intention of revealing them. Accidently, however, Death does let slip out a few clues to her plans -- and her vulnerabilities. I have to make sure the secrets and slip-ups make sense from Death's perspective. So I am re-writing the meeting scene from Death's PoV. (In Death's PoV, she...