Kristen Lamb

Author's posts

What Star Wars "A New Hope" Can Teach Us About In Medias Res

On Friday we talked about using setting as a literary device. Setting is one of those tools that helps writers to do more showing than telling. Today, we are going to tackle a highly confusing subject for many writers—In medias res. In medias res quite literally means in the middle of things. This is a literary tactic that …

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Setting–Adding Dimension to Your Fiction

Social media is an amazing tool, and it is a wonderful time to be a writer, but, I am going to point out the pink elephant in the room. We still have to write a darn good book. If we don’t write a darn good book, then no amount of promotion can help us. Sorry. …

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An Author Platform Built on SPAM is Doomed to Fall

Recently I put my foot down with the link spam on #MyWANA, because without love there is no community. Thing is, #MyWANA is my hash tag so my rules. A lot of the WANAs cheered and promptly began helping me smite the spammers on our beloved hash tag. Some might think I am being a …

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More than Magic & Gadgets–Taking Science Fiction and Fantasy to Another Level

Today, we are going to talk about a problem that plagues sci-fi and fantasy more than any other genre—over fascination with gizmos, widgets, world-building and magic at the expense of the core story and bigger theme. What makes science fiction or fantasy fiction great? What makes it endure for generations? Let’s take a look-see… Great …

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All Work and No Play is No Fun and No Good

We live in a world that is rushing, rushing always rushing. Always busy, busy, busy. We feel as if every small segment of our lives should be scheduled. In America we glorify the workaholic. Many people even brag about how many years they have gone without a vacation, wearing their stress illnesses like a red …

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