There’s this thing going around the intertoobz, wherein an author is challenged to provide “7 Things About Me as a Writer.” Below is mine. I am in respectful awe of “pantser” writers who can write a whole book from start to finish with just a vague notion in mind of where the story ought to…
Galactic News Trends Or, What I’ve Been Up to that I Haven’t Been Around Much Galactic news trends, in the Central Galactic Concordance universe, are the trending news topics that everyone in the civilized galaxy is talking about. Because it’s my universe, I can pretend that it’s news that a Certain Author disappeared from her…
Genres: Reader’s Friend, or Straightjacket? A classic Saturday Night Live fake commercial had Dan Akroyd and Gilda Radner arguing about whether a new product, Shimmer, was a floor wax or a desert topping, only to have spokesperson Chevy Chase reveal that it’s both. If you’ve never seen it, watch it here. I feel that way about…
Science Fiction Thought Experiment: Fun with Total Eclipses Stephanie J. Pajonas is a science fiction author and Facebook friend, part of the estimable SFR Brigade. She recently posed this question: “Would it be possible for a [habitable] world to have a large moon that traveled slowly enough around it that it caused long solar eclipses?” Now me,…
The old adage, “write what you know,” is a good place to start for some writers. Unfortunately, it’s used by some critics, editors, and even writers themselves as a straight-jacket stricture to mean, “write ONLY what you know.” That is egregious nonsense. No science fiction would ever have been written, because if it hasn’t happened…
Chapters and Breaks in Fiction… I don’t know quite how to categorize this post, because it’s partly me as a reader with opinions, and partly me as an author with opinions, too. Chapter Breaks, Time Jumps, POV Changes, and other Sticky Wickets Few things throw me out of the story faster than realizing the last…
If you subscribe to my newsletter, you’ll already know some of this, but I thought I’d share my plans for 2015 a more public venue. Also, it’s self-motivational, in that I’d like to keep my promises. The Central Galactic Concordance Series Some readers have been kind enough to ask what’s next in the Central Galactic…
Why You Should Read More Science Fiction Romance in 2015 Five reasons you should read more science fiction romance (SFR) in 2015. For those new to the term, in my book (oh look, humor!), SFR balances plot threads involving futuristic technology and the growth of the emotional relationship between the main characters.* It also has to have…
Thoughts About Fiction Categories and Keywords We humans love patterns – they’re a time saver, so we don’t have to make the same decision each time we come across something new. “Look at that big tawny cat,” thought a dimwitted ancestor, “I saw one pounce on and eat a gazelle last month. I’m not a…
On Writing Romance: Character Flaws vs. Flawed Characters Pet Peeves, Round 2This is another in my “reader’s pet peeves” series, primarily in the romance genre. (In case you missed it, here was my previous post on pet peeves.) I’m rather annoyed by impossibly beautiful heroines/heroes who don’t know they’re beautiful, and successful people who don’t…
Fiction book blurbs—more properly described as “book descriptions”—are hard to write. Whether they’re on the back of the paperback or the first part of the ebook listing, they’re the first taste of what’s in the book, and they will make or break the sale. They have to confirm the genre (the cover should be…
Alpha heroes abound throughout genre fiction, and nowhere more blatantly than in the romance genre and all its subcategories. If it’s all the same to you, I’ll take a beta hero any day, thanks. OK, that sounds a little snarky, but I’m kind of over the whole larger-than-life, my-way-or-the-highway, macho male role and the…
This is a two-part post written primarily for other independent authors on cover design for fiction novels, with personal opinions and experience galore. There’s a lot to cover (heh!), so let’s dive right in. Great Cover Design Sells Books Fiction covers, experts will tell you, will make or break a sale before the reader even…
Good Books for 2014 and Beyond, or What’s RIGHT with Books These Days It’s easy to kvetch about what’s wrong with books these days, and I’m certainly guilty of it. To be fair, I thought I should balance my complaints with some praise about what I think authors are doing right, considering this is 2014,…
Pet Peeves About Romance Novels There are things that drive me crazy about romance novels these days. When I was ready (OK, driven) to write a science fiction/action series that starts with Overload Flux, it came to me, as I outlined the story arc, that all the planned novels involve romantic elements. Along with science fiction, action,…
Get Carol Van Natta’s blog posts
automatically delivered to your email inbox
Sign up to get blog posts via email
This is to subscribe to Carol’s blog posts. If you want to sign up for Carol’s monthly newsletter, click here.