I've read all the advice about how to create good characters, and I've put it to use. I write backgrounds for them, read their dialogue aloud to be sure it sounds authentic, pay attention to the changes that they go through as the story progresses. But there's one more thing that has to happen, and I haven't got a lot of control over it: they have to grow.

Like children under the old tabula rasa theory, characters are blank when we create them. "I need a guy who can tell the other guy…

I had a great Saturday at the all-day seminar "A World of Fiction Writing" at American University, jointly sponsored by Washington Independent Writers. The speakers were great, especially the web-savvy team on the "Writers' Blogs," panel, and my fellow authors on the genre writing panel.



I had to leave a little early to get to the Borders Books & Music in the Capital Shopping Mall. I…

One of Sisters In Crime's ongoing programs is the Review Monitoring Project. We have a team of dedicated SinC members who check book reviews in local and national publications all year long. They tally results in two categories, those reviews of mysteries written by men and those by women.



Since its beginning, Sisters In Crime has worked hard to accomplish its mission of raising awareness of women mystery authors. The monitoring project is one way to measure how women's books are…

Posted by Sheila Connolly

When you're trying to get your name out there in cyberspace, as we struggling writers are told we must do, you learn very quickly that you are not unique. Picking web domain names, for example, brings that home quickly. I was lucky to snag my own name for my primary site, but my alter ego Sarah Atwell was already taken (by a real estate agent in California) so I had to tweak it.

For those of you who haven't discovered the joys of Google…

The optomitrist had me squint into the machine, peering at letters with my right eye.

"Better or worse?" You know the drill. Soon he had it figured as to how to correct my glasses to give me the best possible view on the world from that angle and had me line up what I thought was my "good" eye for testing. Why did I think this was my good eye? Well, true, I couldn't see anything but a blur out of the eye when I was wearing my glasses but it seemed that I saw better out of that eye…

There’s one day that never gets old no matter how many times I experience it. On Wednesday, I opened the door to the UPS man. While I chased down the puppy who has now learned to master stairs, I chatted with him about dogs and such. I really didn’t pay attention to the box until I got back inside, one arm around the dog, and the other around the box.

I opened it, and to my surprise, it was my copies of the Boucher biography. There’s no other sensation in life like seeing your brand…

Please join us on Saturday, February 16, when author Elizabeth Becka joins Writers Plot to discuss what happens when the second book in your mystery series is rejected by your publisher--and the snowball effect that can have on a writer's career.

Don't miss this intriguing--and rather frightening--post.

Elizabeth Becka is the author of TRACE…

This Saturday I'm 'chatting' with Shelley Munro, another Cerridwen RS author.

From the time she was a little girl living in New Zealand, Shelley Munro wanted to be a detective. She read all the Secret Seven and Famous Five mysteries by Enid Blyton before graduating to Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. Her favorite television viewing was Scooby Doo where she, in her invisible guise, helped Scooby and the gang solve the crime.



As happens with children,…

I'm on my way out to the seminar "A World of Fiction Writing" at American University, then off to Borders Books & Music at The Capital Shopping Mall, so I don't know when I'll get a chance to post again.…

With the publication of POLICE PROCEDURE & INVESTIGATIONS, Writer's Digest Books has gotten itself a sure-fire winner. The subtitle of this book indicates that it was written primarily for the writers of crime books and crime-related short stories. But that is a much too narrow focus. This book is for anyone who is interested in police work, criminal investigations, and all of the aspects that fit under those two general categories. And it…

By Guest Blogger Karen Harper

Escape the winter blahs! A $7 getaway to romance and thrills in sunny south Florida!

OK, I didn’t mean to get carried away with hype. I really do have something a bit deeper to say about my new book and the craft/art of writing in general.

Readers (and my own 86-year-old mother!) often ask me where I get ideas for my novels. I guess they think, with a 25-year writing career and 46 novels to my name, I’ll run out of plots…

Mine is next Thursday, February 14th, which is a cool day to launch a romance, I think. I had not planned a party, since I live in the sticks and didn't think anyone cared. I am unashamed to admit that I was wrong, very wrong.

The local Friends of the Library called to say they'd like to host the launch, and it has become an Event, with a capital. They've done a lovely job of planning, and people assure me daily that not only do they plan to attend, but they look forward to…

posted by Leann Sweeney

Ever have one of those moments when you're all alone, you're watching the tube and a couple things come together that just make you grin like a donkey with a mouth full of prickers? That's what happened to me as I watched this week's episode of Murder by the Book on TruTV. Formerly Court TV. Those of you who've been to Wrtiers Plot before might remember how much I love Court TV, might recall a post I did on the Phil Spector trial. I think that…

To which I answer, I'm 51 years old. I don't have to do push-ups any more and you can't make me.

And that brings me to my topic for today--physical education in the public schools. With the emphasis on meeting the "No Child Left Behind" standards, many schools have eliminated gym class and recess and have only recently noticed that the kids really did need that time to exercise. There's an epidemic of obesity in children, brought on by oversized portions, a steady diet of junk food…