Show, Don’t Tell, Your Story (Here’s How)
Reading Time: 6 minutesThrough showing, not telling, you provide a more immersive experience for your readers. Here’s how.
Nonfiction
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Oct. 25, 2024
Reading Time: 10 minutesWe read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes space battles, magical mysteries, and a sexy orc.
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Pocket-Sized Stories: Less Text, More Punch
Reading Time: 8 minutesLimited word counts in flash stories require you to make careful and judicious choices of what to keep and what to revise away because in flash fiction, there’s little room for coyness or ambiguity.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Oct. 18, 2024
Reading Time: 9 minutesWe read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes pirates — both the space and the ocean kind — as well as mages and mediums.
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Writing the Other: Fictions and Culture
Reading Time: 6 minutesFiction is unique to human communication, which is fascinating on its own. But why do we still look to fictions? What do they do for us in the modern age? Why does fiction matter? And what considerations must go into crafting culturally honest fictions?
Friendship Is at the Forefront of Shaun Hamill’s The Dissonance
Reading Time: 3 minutesThe book is dynamic and fast paced, with flashbacks and cliffhangers to keep you reading along. It is hard to put down, and I never say this lightly.
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Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Oct. 11, 2024
Reading Time: 10 minutesWe read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes a shifter romance by a New York Times bestselling author, a book about a space pirate, and a thriller about climate change.
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7 Story Structures to Know (and Disregard)
Reading Time: 5 minutesStory structure is the framework around your literary jigsaw puzzle, the order into which you organize the events in your story to create a beginning, a middle, and an end. So let’s talk about some common story structures you may encounter while researching storytelling techniques.
Best space operas with kick-ass women
Reading Time: 10 minutesNine favorite space opera series with kick-ass female leads.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Oct. 4, 2024
Reading Time: 10 minutesWe read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes dark magic, ancient evils, and serial killers — just in time for the spooky season.
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Deep Black Has Everything You Need: Action, Aliens, and Conspiracies
Reading Time: 2 minutesDeep Black goes deeper into human-alien relationships and what it means to explore the vastness of space. It also questions whether AI should be trusted or not.
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Three Craft Reads For Revising Your Story
Reading Time: 4 minutesMastering story edits isn’t easy, but there are a few books I’ve recommended to my clients repeatedly to assist them during edits, and these are also books I use myself when editing my work. The good news: Once you’ve absorbed the material covered in these books, you’ll be able to apply the lessons over and over without really thinking about them. They’ll become second-nature to your writerly process.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for September 27, 2024
Reading Time: 9 minutesWe read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes a romantasy by a USA Today bestselling author, a space opera box set, time travel, and a gaslamp mystery.
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Story Is Goal, Motivation, and Conflict
Reading Time: 6 minutesWhether you are looking for a new story idea, developing an existing story, or beta reading a story for another author, identifying the protagonist’s goal, motivations, and conflicts is important to understand the story’s message to readers.
Artifact Space by Miles Cameron Takes You for an Interstellar Ride
Reading Time: 3 minutesMiles Cameron’s space opera Artifact Space opens with a very action-forward sequence that sees Marca Nbaro, the protagonist, running away from space cops to board a huge cargo ship called the Athens because her dream has always been to work and serve at that ship.
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Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Sep. 20, 2024
Reading Time: 9 minutesWe read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes a demon who cost a witch her job, time-traveling tourists, and so, so much fantasy romance!
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Fall 2024 Original Fiction Submissions Period Opens October 1!
Reading Time: 2 minutesThe fall 2024 submission cycle for original speculative fiction begins on October 1 and closes at midnight on October 31. We’re looking for your best enthralling, imaginative, or bone-chilling original fiction stories, as long as they’re 1,200 words or fewer.
Fall 2024 Original Fiction Submissions Period Opens October 1! Read More »
How to Balance a Bittersweet Ending
Reading Time: 6 minutesMost of you will have heard the phrase: When one door closes, another one opens. But that doesn’t mean closing the one door is easy or without its challenges, and it doesn’t mean the door that opens will open up to sunshine and rainbows. In fact, many of the most rewarding learning experiences are borne of loss, grief, even tragedy.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Sep. 13, 2024
Reading Time: 9 minutesWe read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes two box sets — military sci-fi and romantasy — and urban fantasy by a USA Today bestselling author!
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Traveling Through Space-Time: Physics VS Fantasy
Reading Time: 8 minutesAs fun as it is to conceptualize, philosophize, and ‘what if’ oneself through astrophysics, it’s important to know what the scientific and literary rules are for space travel so you can either use them to your story’s advantage (and please your readers with your knowledge) or disregard them intentionally in pursuit of imaginative creative expression.
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Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Sep. 6, 2024
Reading Time: 11 minutesWe read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list is all about magic women falling in love both in the modern day and in fairy tale settings.
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SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission will push space travel further than any private mission has before
Reading Time: 5 minutesPolaris Dawn pushes the envelope of civilian space travel in 2024, but at what cost?
Structure, Character, Plot: The Big Picture of Story
Reading Time: 7 minutesRegardless of genre, tropes, and intended audiences, every novel you pick up has three things in common: structure, character, and plot.
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Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Aug. 30, 2024
Reading Time: 11 minutesWe read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list is a nice mix of space battles and fantasy romance — something for everyone.
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Sonic The Hedgehog 3 Looks To Fully Embrace Its Video Game Source
Reading Time: 2 minutesThe trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is taking a darker approach than the previous two films, but still boasts quite a few laughs and Easter eggs for long-time fans of the blue hedgehog.
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Get Your First Line to Make a Good Impression (Here’s How)
Reading Time: 5 minutesWhen you know the purpose of your opening line, crafting the opener and tinkering with it until it hums can even be fun.
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Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Aug. 23, 2024
Reading Time: 9 minutesWe read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list has magic schools, a witch who rescues an elephant, and a time-travel tour company.
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Remove Filters and Strengthen Your Fiction
Reading Time: 4 minutesFiltering separates the reader from the immediacy of the experience and disallows full immersion in the character’s journey. While there are valid reasons to use sensory filters, removing them may enhance the reader’s experience of your work.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Aug. 16, 2024
Reading Time: 10 minutesWe read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes EMP survival, fantasy, and two bestselling authors!
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Hugos awarded, Emily Tesh and Ann Leckie take top honors
Reading Time: 5 minutesEmith Tesh’s Some Desperate Glory and Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch won this year’s Hugo Awards for best novel and best series.
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Read Better to Write Well
Reading Time: 9 minutesReading becomes a form of procrastination when it distracts or detracts from your writing. Get the benefits of reading while writing by curating your book list.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Aug. 9, 2024
Reading Time: 9 minutesWe read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list is all about magical love, dragon love, and fairy tale love.
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Writers, Let Go of Scarcity
Reading Time: 7 minutesWith approximately 11,000 books published every single day, how does a no-name author without much by way of platform break into such a saturated and competitive market? By accepting abundance.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for Aug. 2, 2024
Reading Time: 10 minutesWe read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes a plague, a sexy dragon, witches and wizards, and a modern-day retelling of the Snow White story.
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Sci-fi tractor beam comes closer to reality
Reading Time: 3 minutesIn a breakthrough that sounds like it’s straight out of a science fiction novel, researchers have successfully created a tractor beam using twisting light beams.
Write A Letter To Your Reader
Reading Time: 7 minutesInstead of staring at a blank page wondering how you’re going to start writing or even where to start, put away the book project. Write a letter to your reader instead.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for July 26, 2024
Reading Time: 11 minutesWe read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes four cozy, witchy mysteries — and some epic space battles.
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Hugo awards votes disqualified
Reading Time: 2 minutesThe Hugo Awards, set to be awarded on August 11, has disqualified nearly ten percent of the votes cast this year due to fraud.
Weave Backstory Into Fiction
Reading Time: 8 minutesExplore how to weave backstory well and keep your reader’s attention on the present.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for July 19, 2024
Reading Time: 10 minutesWe read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes some epic epic fantasies, including one by Nora Roberts — yup, the Nora Roberts!
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Studying lake deposits in Idaho could give scientists insight into ancient traces of life on Mars
Reading Time: 4 minutesWhile NASA researchers are directly combing the surface of Mars for signs of life, scientists are also using a site here on Earth to approximate ancient environmental conditions on Mars.
Settings Are Characters Too
Reading Time: 7 minutesSettings in stories have lives of their own and become characters in themselves, living from the first pages of a story, experiencing challenges and changes.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for July 12, 2024
Reading Time: 9 minutesWe read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes a college student at the center of a mysterious conspiracy, and a man with no memory marooned on a planet trapped between two dimensions.
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ChatGPT and the movie ‘Her’ are just the latest example of the ‘sci-fi feedback loop’
Reading Time: 5 minutesScience fiction and technological innovation feed off each other in an ongoing back-and-forth that can play out over decades.
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Answer The Question
Reading Time: 4 minutesThe balance of the four elements of the MICE Quotient (milieu, idea, character, event) in narrative fiction carries forward a story succinctly and cohesively to engage readers. Here’s how to use it.
Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for July 5, 2024
Reading Time: 9 minutesWe read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes a cursed merman king, orcs and vampires, and a superhuman soldier called back into action to fight in an interstellar war.
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Humanize Characters By Appearance and Interpretation
Reading Time: 10 minutesSubjective interpretation of appearances and other facets of being human means each person has a different reaction to what they’re seeing with varying levels of intrigue, disgust, indifference, and deference. Show your readers who your characters are, rather than telling, for greater emotional effect. Here’s how.
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Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for June 28, 2024
Reading Time: 9 minutesWe read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes lots and lots of cozy fantasy — and invading alien monsters.
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Humanize Characters Using Dialogue, Thought, and Action
Reading Time: 8 minutesReaders look for emotional connections to the stories they read, and your characters are poised to deliver those emotional connections with staying power when developed in a robust and well-rounded way.
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Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for June 21, 2024
Reading Time: 10 minutesWe read the first few chapters of each of the top five free fantasy and sci-fi books on Amazon. Today’s list includes so much romantasy. And all the fae and forbidden loves anyone could ever want.
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