Tag: Bob Mayer

Why Pen Names Suck & Can Make Us Crazy

Yes, you heard me correctly. Pen names suck 50%….no 67%…no….okay, 99% of the time. Oh, don’t start whining. Don’t you think I would have like to have been something a tad more glamorous than Kristen Lamb? When I was 5 my father convinced me that he had legally changed my name to Mary Hannah. Get …

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"He is His Own Worst Enemy…"–Antagonist Part 2

Part of why I am writing this series on the antagonist is that most new writers don’t understand 1.) how vital the antagonist is, 2) how to properly use the antagonist and 3) often cannot spot an antagonist if he were dressed like a Vegas showgirl holding sparklers (okay, maybe that last one was just …

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Twitter Tuesday #8

Welcome to the eighth installment of Twitter Tuesday. In the spirit of Twitter, this blog will be short and sweet and to the point. The tips offered here are all based off my best-selling book We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media. If our goal is to build an author platform in the thousands to tens of thousands, then we will …

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Dare to Be Excellent (This Might Hurt a Little)

Years ago, when I first started writing, fiction was my passion.  The problem, however, is that passion devoid of training is a formula to end up with 174,000 word tome that is the stuff of agent nightmares.  I wish I was one of those talented people who “got it” from the start. I didn’t. I …

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Hooking the Reader and Never Letting Go

  What is the one ingredient we MUST include to have great fiction? CONFLICT. No conflict, no story. One of the biggest stumbling blocks I see in new writers is that they fail to understand the difference between authentic conflict versus a bad situation. Bad situations do not make good fiction. Bad situations are boring …

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