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Something like 92% of all New Year’s resolutions are doomed to failure. If one of your goals is to write a novel this year, don’t let yourself become a statistic. Find out the answers to your questions and learn how…
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14 Colorado Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors You Probably Haven’t Read Yet
MileHiCon is one of those strange and wondrous places where you can randomly run into legendary authors such as Eric Flint (New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Locus Magazine bestseller), two-time Hugo Award winning podcaster Patrick Hester,…
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Create the Perfect Villain: a 6-Step Master Plan
In my last article on Fiction University, I laid out 6 Ways to Make Readers Fall in Love With Your Characters. If you’re writing a story or novel, pay attention. Because now I’m going to flip all of those techniques…
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Undead behind the scenes in A Kiss Before Doomsday
In case you missed it, the Science Fiction Book Club chose A Kiss Before Doomsday as a featured pick. Which, as an author, is incredibly exciting. To celebrate, I put together a behind-the-scenes special that the book club shared with…
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Is Canva the Betty Crocker of Book Covers?
If you’re an author, what’s the easiest way to make a decent book cover? Unless a publisher is creating the book cover for you, you can expect to spend anywhere from $100 to $1,000 hiring a designer. So when Canva…
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It Happened One Doomsday ebook $1.99 until Oct. 2
Dru Jasper now officially has her own book series. (Yay!) So if you haven’t tried it yet, now is the perfect time to start. Plus, you can get a free bonus ebook. Here’s how: 1. Get the first Dru Jasper…
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My Funny (and True) Ghost Town Story
Here in Colorado, we have our fair share of ghost towns. GPS and smart phones make them easier to find these days, but years ago you had to get there the old-fashioned way. One summer day, my wife and I…
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Discover New Fantasy Reads at Knaaks Knoll
When I was a kid, DragonLance was the first series of fantasy novels that totally hooked me. I still get chills thinking about Raistlin changing his robes from red to black. Now, my friend and fellow author Richard A. Knaak (longtime DragonLance…
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The Best 80s Game You Probably Didn’t Play
Way back in the 1980s, there were gamebooks, those choose-your-own-adventure type of books where you made a decision and then turned to a specially-numbered paragraph to find out what happened next. Now, they’re back. Ian Livingstone, who (along with fellow…
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6 Easy Steps to Writing Unforgettable Characters
Every writer knows that creating interesting characters is one of the toughest parts of the job. I don’t feel like an expert on characters by any means, but RT Book Reviews said this about my latest book: “MacNaughton has a…
From the blog
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Want to Get Published? Read This.
I’ve talked to dozens of best-selling authors about their early years, before they were published. And the similarities between them are striking. On average, they wrote about half a dozen unpublished manuscripts before they sold a novel. (By the way, this is what I call the Myth of the First Novel. Because it’s hardly ever…
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Compelling Character Arcs in 4 Easy Steps
I’ll let you in on a secret: readers want your character to change. They know, deep down, that your character is unhappy with the status quo at the beginning of your book. Something is terribly wrong in your character’s life, and things can’t keep going on this way. Something’s got to give. Readers fervently hope…
LAURENCE MACNAUGHTON 