If romance makes the changes that should have been made centuries ago, if romance opens its publishing houses and agencies and offers the same opportunity to authors of color as it does to white authors right now, we take away the excuse that it won’t work.
Food is an intrinsic part of human life and it feeds – in more ways than one – into who we are as people, physically and emotionally. It dictates our social lives, the way we feel about ourselves and so much more.
Listening to the world around you – yes, perhaps more than is polite – is a surefire way to realistically represent the world around you, no matter the setting, time period or characters.
When I write strong female characters, I think of it more with the emphasis on strong character, creating heroines and female main characters that are strongly written, fleshed out and three dimensional. The character isn’t strong, necessarily, because of her physical abilities or emotional capacity. She is strong because the characterization is strong and complete.
Every writer has their own style and approach to a story. Some research first, others outline and plan, and some dive right in with nothing more than a name and a vague idea for where their novel might end up. As you can probably guess, I’m not one of those people.
I’m challenging myself to write a book in a genre I’ve only recently started to explore. And it’s hard. The deadline is incredibly tight, but more than that, I’m approaching storytelling in a brand new way.
I got to sit down with Kay Blake, one of the founders of Bookish Brown Girls, to hear all about this awesome reading and writing programs!
Show. Don’t tell.
Every person who has ever put pen to paper has heard this line. Don’t tell us we are in Paris, give us the acrid scent of the Seine mixing with buttery croissants, give us the crunch of rough, dusty cobblestoned streets beneath our feet, give us the taste of acrylics on the air from freshly painted street art.
For anyone who has read the six-word story by Hemingway, “For sale: baby shoes, never worn,” you’ll know an awful lot can be said with an awful little.
I used to think I could research my books as I went. I used to delve into plot and character development and setting and think I’ll get to that later. I used to believe that research was secondary, tertiary even, to the fundamentals of writing a story.
I used to be very, very wrong.
Holland Rae, Writer 