The October Chronicles

Part of my mission at FictionMentor.com is perform audiobooks of different genres and critique them, so that you and I both can not only enjoy the story, but learn aspects of the writing craft as we go. In this episode, we begin with my fantasy novel A Tribe Of Kassia , in which an irreligious desert elf develops crippling panic attacks after his village is destroyed and betrothed kidnapped. Teami...

With nine novels out at traditional publishers like Random House and Simon & Schuster, I've gotten a lot of rejections on stories. What makes the first few pages stand out and land a deal?  Most of it is stuff you have no control over, like maybe it just didn't "click" with the agent or editor. (That is totally valid!) What you *can* control is introducing your main character, Voice, tone...

Writer's Block is a myth. If you are writing fiction with the plan of getting paid to do it, there is no such thing as Writer's Block. I don't want to perpetuate the Tortured Artist mythos, but let's be honest...a lot of us creatives bring emotional baggage to our art, business, and craft. For writers, sometimes that gets interpreted as Writer's Block. Sometimes...you have to let it go for a secon...