Tag: writing advice

Archetypes Part 2.5 of 2: The Archetypes

~ Kathryn Fletcher

I didn’t anticipate I’d have so much to say about each archetype, so now I give you… Part 2.5 of 2 The Archetypes Continued Warrior/ Hero As you might imagine the warrior is a person who is good at battle and fighting. Prime examples of this in LOTR are Gimli, Legolas, Boramir, and more. They are expert fighters, (and if you watch the movies…beyond reason when fighting the Warg). Eowyn, “I am no man!” But if you think outside the normal boring box, you might also consider characters like Eowyn. She fought in the end and defeated the Witch-King of Angmar, speaking the best line ever written!

90 Days to Your Novel Book Review

~ Kathryn Fletcher

I saw that an Instagram friend of mine was doing a 90 Days to Your Novel challenge thing, based on this book. I was intrigued. I mean, who wouldn't want to write a whole novel in 90 days? Can you really do that? Would it be any good? I know there are indie authors out there that crank out 4-5 novels a year. Something I've learned in the last year is that consistency and frequency really help when it comes to growing a following. For example, I started this blog in August 2016. Then, I decided to start grad school to become a librarian. So, from June 2017-Aug 2019 while I was in school and working full time as a teacher, I posted infrequently. Since August, I have (for the most part) posted every Friday. The number of followers since then has nearly doubled and views on the website are way up. I expect by the end of 2020 the views will more than double from last year. BUT that is not nearly important to me as quality content. I try to be consistent. But sometimes I've got stuff going on in my life (my MIL and my Stepdad passed away in the last 9 months) that prevent me from writing quality content for you, so I skip a week or two. Maybe that hurts the SEO, but I refuse to put junk out there attached to my name.

Deep Dive into Description: Fairytale-Style Narrative

~ Kathryn Fletcher ~ 1 Comment

Fairytale has such a childish connotation, but bear with me on this. You don’t have to be an author of children’s books to get something from this post. I find that the best way to get better at something is to learn from the masters. I would love to sit down with any of these authors and learn all their secrets, but I doubt they would agree to meet with me. Even if they did, they cannot impart their years of toil upon me in a quick interview. That is best done by study.

Writing Advice: Writer’s Block

~ Kathryn Fletcher

When I was little the doctor used to prick my finger to test blood for something I didn’t understand. The prick never really hurt that bad, but the doctor squeezing my finger to get enough blood out into the tiny capillary tube hurt like crazy! That is what writer’s block is like. The type of writer’s block I’ve had was more of a 10+ year paralysis. After college I wrote 1/3 of a novel. I decided to research the craft of writing. Great idea in theory. It was like drinking from a fire hose because I decided it would be a good idea to read every book that I could get my hands on. I had no idea there was so much to learn. I became overwhelmed and didn’t know how to implement ALL that I had learned ALL at once. So I stopped writing. Life got busy anyway. I changed careers, got married, had a child, moved a couple times. Ya know…Life.

Writing Advice: Write Only for Yourself

~ Kathryn Fletcher

Ray Bradbury said "Write only for yourself" This is excellent advice! At times I've gotten stuck in my writing, and after thinking about the cause, I usually find that I'm attempting to write for the wrong reason. For the past couple years, I've been writing short stories in hopes of getting published in one of the SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association) recognized magazines so I can become a member of SFWA. Sometimes I catch myself trying to write not from my heart, but with an end goal in mind, publication. This means I'm on step 2, but thinking about step 12.

Writing Advice: Write What You Know

~ Kathryn Fletcher ~ 1 Comment

“Write what you know.” I’ve heard this attributed to Mark Twain but I’m not sure if this is accurately attributed. If you know more about who first said this, I’d love to hear from you in the comments or email me! The librarian in my is very concerned with giving attribution to the correct people! Many people get frustrated by this piece of advice. I was one of them because I’m a fantasy/sci-fi writer. How can one know about a creature that doesn’t really exist…dragons, unicorns (although maybe they are real, but really good at hiding), and trolls (these do actually appear on the internet all the time, just not in the literal form that I write.) I have a friend that writes about an ICU nurse who turns into an amateur sleuth. As far as I know, she’s never investigated an ACTUAL murder, although she was an ICU nurse. You get the idea right?