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On Writing

Posts about the craft of writing

June 28, 2024July 1, 2024 JES HaysOn Writing, Tips and Tricks

10 Quick Tips for Naming Characters

Here are ten quick ways to come up with names for your characters (without using one of those online name generators) Bonus: Five Name Generating Websites:

June 7, 2024June 12, 2024 JES HaysInspiration, Tips and Tricks

More from the AI

Here’s what we got when we told the AI to give us some sensory details for that train story: User That’s great. Please give me a feel for the atmosphere. […]

May 31, 2024June 12, 2024 JES HaysInspiration, Tips and Tricks

Playing with AI

So I’ve been playing around with AI. Not to write anything for me, but for research purposes. One of the stories I’m working on at the moment involves a train […]

May 10, 2024May 25, 2024 JES HaysInspiration, On Writing

11 of the Best Books on Writing

Here are eleven great books about how to write. First You Write: The Worst Way to Become an Almost Famous Author and the Best Advice I Got While Doing It by […]

March 8, 2024March 11, 2024 JES HaysCharacters, On Writing

Getting Rid of Mary Sue

In our last post, we introduced a character named Mary Sue. A Mary Sue character is a character, usually female but not always (you can have a Gary Stu or […]

March 1, 2024March 11, 2024 JES HaysCharacters, On Writing

Who is Mary Sue and Way Does (Almost) Everyone Hate Her?

If you’re a reader, you’ve probably encountered a Mary Sue (or her male equivalent Gary or Marty Stu). If you’re a writer, the term strikes fear into your heart if […]

January 19, 2024January 30, 2024 JES HaysOn Writing, Your Platform

A Newsletter…About Newsletters

Mailerlite has threatened us with a fate worse than death if we don’t authenticate and validate our websites. What they’re talking about is making them come from some other location […]

January 12, 2024January 15, 2024 JES HaysCharacters, On Writing, Plot

Terms All Readers Should Know

In order to read critically, you should know the correct terminology of a work of literature–a novel, memoir, autobiography, history, etc. Here are 9 terms every reader should know before […]

November 11, 2023November 10, 2023 JES HaysInspiration, On Writing

News from the SCWA Conference

I spent last weekend at the South Carolina Writers Association StoryFest Conference. It was a great little convention, and I learned a lot. We had some good speakers and of […]

July 12, 2023July 14, 2023 JES HaysOn Writing, The Birth of a Novel

Anthology Creation

My chapter of Sisters in Crime is thinking about producing an anthology, so I’m getting in on the ground floor. We’ll see how it goes. So far, it looks immensely […]

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