Dark, soulful tales that haunt long after the last page.
Writing Tips
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Writing the Unlikeable Protagonist—and Making Readers Care
There’s a certain pressure in fiction to make your protagonist likable. Relatable. Sympathetic. You’re supposed to give readers someone they want to root for—someone they’d grab a beer with or follow into battle. But sometimes, the story demands someone worse. Someone angry. Someone broken. Someone who’s said and done things you can’t defend. Someone like…
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The Thin Wall Between Life and Death in Nursing Homes
Nursing homes have always creeped me out. My first experience in one was in maybe the 4th grade as a Cub Scout. Our den mother took us to a nearby nursing home to sell raffle tickets or something. I remember old women sitting in a lobby like they were waiting for us. Waiting to take…
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Six Novels and Their Lessons: A Writer’s Reflection
Driving home from the dog park tonight, a random image from my past popped into my head. It was a scene from the fourth novel I finished sometime back in about 1992. You probably know that Shara was my first published novel, originally released in 2003, but it was the seventh novel I’d completed. I…
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How to Fail as an Author: A Memoir and Guide by Steven E. Wedel
If you’d told me at the beginning of the year that I was going to write a how-to book for authors, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. But I have been reading so many of them that just didn’t seem to cover my situation, that I decided to outline one. Then I wrote a chapter.…
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How to Fail as an Author ToC
In my last post I told you about the book I was working on, a sort of instruction manual for writers called How to Fail as an Author. I shared the first chapter of the book in my blog. I have finished the first draft of that project! It’s a relatively short book at about…
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Trusting the Muse
On Tuesday I’ll release another new book into the world. The Broken Man is my second Western. It’s just a novella, only a bit over 20,000 words, but is the first in a series called The Travels of Jacob Wolf. This post is kind of about the new book, but it’s more about the writing…
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SEO for Fiction Authors
Search engine optimization. It’s something I only heard about a few months ago when, of course, I realized I wasn’t doing it and need to. So I’ve been looking into what it is and how it helps authors. Here’s some stuff I’ve learned. First, what is search engine optimization (SEO for short)? SEO refers to…
Steven E. Wedel 