I’ve talked before about the power of What If questions when it comes to creativity. What I want to talk about today is related: the power of making lists. Lists force you to move past the first idea that pops into your head in answer to a What If question. When I get stuck, I […]
So you’ve come up with a clever twist that you think no one will ever see coming. And you send it to your beta readers, waiting to hear back that the shock and surprise of the twist had them in awe. Maybe that’s exactly what happens. Or . . . maybe they tell you the […]
I have three very good friends who aren’t writers, but have been there with me as I developed the Chocoverse. I asked them what they would like to know, that hadn’t come up in our everyday conversation. It turned into this interview. The pic is of all of us hanging out at a coffee shop, […]
Here it is, the night before the final book in my trilogy comes out. Very little about this is the way I imagined it would be. I never intended to become a hybrid author. I never intended to launch a book in the middle of a pandemic. And I still feel like a tiny voice […]
The Fake Chocolate blog tour is underway! I will update this post with links as everything goes live. 3/20 — Civilian Reader, Guest Blog Post — Worldbuilding Interconnectivityhttps://civilianreader.com/2020/03/20/guest-post-by-amber-royer/ 4/13 — Amber’s Blog, Book Launch Eve Post http://amberroyer.com/lessons-learned-from-writing-the-chocoverse/ 4/14 — Paul Semel’s Blog, Interview http://paulsemel.com/exclusive-interview-fake-chocolate-author-amber-royer/ 4/16 — North Texas Nerd, Interview http://northtexasnerd.weebly.com/home/interview-author-amber-royer 4/16 — Dan Koboldt […]
One of the first pieces of advice everyone gives to new writers is show, not tell. However, it’s a bit more complicated than that. You couldn’t show everything that happens to your character from the beginning of the novel to the end. There are some paint-drying boring things that happen to a character (such as […]
Every scene in your manuscript should have a purpose, and move the story forward. So obviously, you don’t want to waste the reader’s attention with scenes that relay the same information. But what about the same emotions? Repetition leads to boredom. If, like me, you tend to write long and have to trim back your […]
Disclosure: Chococlectic approached me with a free sample box to evaluate. I was so intrigued by their business model, that I decided to feature them on the blog. Today I got to chat with Doreen Leong of Chococlectic, a craft chocolate subscription box company that sends curated chocolate bars. I got to find out a […]
Ever wonder why so many characters have sidekicks? It’s not so much that the character couldn’t do whatever actions the sidekick takes in the story. It’s that the audience needs to understand the underlying motivations behind the character’s actions, and a sidekick is an easy way to get the protag to vocalize her reasoning. One […]
Does every story need a villain? There is a big difference between a villain and an antagonist. A villain wants to impart physical or emotional pain to your story’s protagonist. An antagonist is simply at odds with your protag. Which means a villain is by definition an antagonist – but only some antagonists are villains. […]
