Melissa Maygrove

  Can you believe it's been 4 years? If you're looking for a Halloween read, this is it. And the content is PG-13, so you can enjoy it with your school-age kids. What happens in the dark will come to light .   FULL DARK  is a benefit anthology. 100% of the proceeds will be donated to the Gary Sinise Foundation, an organization that does many wonderful things for our country's active military, its veterans, and the countless first responders who sacrifice so much to keep us safe. ### Publisher: Obsidian Books Purchase links:  Kindle  ~  Paperback

It's less than five hours before this post goes live, and I'm undecided over what to write. No good topic comes to mind, so I'll link some of the popular blog posts from over the years. Feel free to pick and choose what you like. Beginning writers might find Showing & Telling and The Snobbish Rules of Fiction helpful. If you're new to critiques, try What's a Critique? It includes a list of abbreviations and critique lingo. Do you struggle with info dumps ? Would you like to write faster ?

I've been writing fiction for three years, and I've noticed something. I talk funny. Not funny-ha-ha, funny-different. In those early days, I wrote the way I always had, then edited later. ( Not that it improved my writing much, but humor me here. :P ) As I learned more about fiction writing and honed my craft, I began to self-edit as I write. Now, that lingual self-awareness comes so naturally, it has altered the way I speak. Has this happened to you? ### Thanks for visiting. :)  I'll be hosting Siv Ottem with a special post on Friday.  Hope you can make it.  Does writing fiction make you talk funny? ( click to tweet )

This is my Insecure Writers Support Group post for April.   IWSG is the brainchild of Alex J. Cavanaugh. It's a monthly bloghop that offers a safe haven for writers to express their feelings and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. It's also a venue for offering support, both in the form of comments and positive posts . Writers of all kinds are welcome.  We 'meet' the first Wednesday of every month. If you're interested in learning more, click on the link above. And don't be intimidated by the size of the group. We're not expected to visit everyone on the list.  I make blank place-holder posts for IWSG, and this one sat empty for a long time. I kept waiting for a flash of inspiration about what to write. In light of my impending blog hiatus, I decided to address the semi-scathing article I posted last week. In it, I took a strong stand against careless self-publishing. The post generated many cries of support...

While looking for blog post ideas, I came across a list of the Top 10 Vile Villainesses .  " We may love the protagonists of our favorite novels, but without an antagonist to struggle against, those novels would be very dull. Lots has been written about the roles played by women in literature, and this list celebrates female villains. Some we hate and some we love to hate. Here are ten of the best worst women of literature .  - Ben Gazur " In ascending order, they are: 10. Dolores Umbrige, professor from Harry Potter .  9.   Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper from the novel Rebecca . 8.   The White Witch from Narnia.  7.   Miss Havisham from Dickens' Great Expectations . 6.   Grendel's Mother in Beowulf . 5.   Marquise de Merteuil, from Les Liasions Dangereuses , a novel that scandalized France when it was published in 1782. 4.   Livia from Robert Graves' I, Claudius . 3.   Sha...

Are you ready for another cover reveal?  I hope so, because... Today I'm helping Aussie author Cally Jackson show off the cover of her debut New Adult novel, The Big Smoke . I met Cally on the blogosphere a while back and was immediately drawn to her upbeat personality and thought-provoking blog posts. If you don't already follow Cally Jackson Writes , consider adding it to your list. :) And now for the awesome cover. Here it is!

I'm relatively new at this fiction thing, but I've been writing long enough to know my moods affect my writing. When I'm upbeat and happy, the prose flows and I come up with some funny lines. But when I'm tired or down, I have to force the words onto the page only to wish I hadn't bothered. What about you? Do your moods and energy level affect your writing? Do you write anyway? Or put off the word count until your sun comes out again? Bad Day (Album Version) by Daniel Powter on Grooveshark Enjoy the music while you type your reply.  :)

.           We left everything but the weapons. Clothes, food, toothpaste. There wasn’t time for things that weren’t essential to escape. The five of us went on foot in a direction that was meaningless to me. I had never seen what was outside of the edges of the safe haven, not since I’d been here. When Mac stopped abruptly after our fifteen-minute trek into the woods, we all froze at once, bodies poised and ready to attack, eyes searching for threats. .           “We’re here,” Mac announced. “What should we expect Marcus?”

Everyone has an opinion, and today you get to give me yours. :)  My one request (besides keeping it civil and family-friendly in the comments) is that you either vote on all three polls or none of them . Regarding works of fiction...

One of my goals when I pre-scheduled July's posts was to keep at least SOME of them brief, but then I got tagged in a couple of memes, and one of the shortest posts ever in the history of my blog turned into two long ones (read: blame Carrie Butler ). :P  I managed to sneak in a short one today. Maybe I'll be more successful in August...

I was tagged by Carrie Butler on her blog So You’re A Writer for the Be Inspired meme . The instructions say to answer the following questions, and then tag five people.  Here we go... 1. What is the name of your book? Come Back 2. Where did the idea for your book come from?

Contrary to what you're probably thinking, this post is not about killing off characters. It's about a necessary act we writers all hate , know as murdering our little darlings — the act of deleting lines, scenes, and even chapters we love because they don't work with our story.

I'm a stickler for grammar when it comes to writing, but I've also learned along the way that fiction writing is different from other types of writing. It follows different rules. Some of those rules are fairly fixed while others are apparently subjective. In dialogue, we are allowed to make PUGS errors if it fits the character and the needs of the line. (PUGS = Punctuation, Usage, Grammar, Spelling) Some authors (I'm guilty of this one) use comma+then rather than comma+and then or semicolon+then, because it just sounds better sometimes. In the narrative, we can include things like short sentence fragments if they don't stumble the reader. In fact, I think they're great if used well. So, my question to you is: When is a mistake not a mistake? What stumbles you in fiction, and which mistakes can actually make the writing better?

Today I'm going to cover some less common marks of punctuation as it relates to writing fiction, mainly dashes, parentheses & semicolons.You may have occasion to use these, but you'll want to use them properly and sparingly. Why? Because improper use and overuse can pull the reader out of your story – something you should avoid. Before I discuss proper use of the marks I mentioned above, let's cover the issue of overuse. As with many other details in fiction (e.g. repetitive words and phrases), less common marks of punctuation should be used sparingly. If not, they will lose their effectiveness and possibly become an irritant to the reader.   Take the exclamation point, for example. Your sentence structure and dialogue should be strong enough that you rarely need one. Occasionally you might, but keep its use to a minimum. And, although I can't find a reference to back me up at the moment, I've been told not to use both a question mark and an exclamation ma...

As an extension of our confusable homophones from last week, I've decided to tackle a few in particular. Some of you may find this lesson simple, but enough people get these wrong that I felt it was worth addressing. Let's start off easy... Two, Too and To : Two = the number of something.       Sally has two kittens . Too = also / very.         I have kittens, too . They are too young to give away. Note: When using 'too' to mean 'also,' set it off with a comma(s). [Edited 6-24-13: Apparently, the comma-before-too rule is no longer a rule. See this post for clarification.] To is a preposition.        I took them back to their mother . There, Their and They're : There = location.         The ball is over there . Their = possessive pronoun.         Hurry! Go get their ball!. They're = contraction of 'they a...

Are we identical? Look closely... In the English language, there are many pairs of words that sound alike and are spelled almost alike, yet have entirely different meanings. Consequently, it's easy to write the wrong one and not realize it. To compound this problem, word processors do not recognize it as a misspelling and may not flag an incorrect usage as a mistake. Let me give you some examples: altar (a sacred table in a church) vs. alter ( which means to change) born (to start life) vs. borne (to carry) and... compliment (an admiring remark) vs. complement (an addition that improves something) What a difference a letter makes! Here are a few more: accept / except...affect / effect...coarse / course...discreet / discrete... pour / pore...past / passed...site / sight...and the list goes on. What do you do? Well, making yourself aware of them by reading through lists of these pairs can help. Keeping a dictionary (like Thesarus.com ) open in your browser so you can easily ch...

Rules: Post a picture of your hero with a character interview that has at least 5 questions. Then hop around to get to know all the participants' swoon-worthy heroes! I wasn't sure which character I wanted to use. The hero of my first two manuscripts I know very well, but my third manuscript is the one I'll likely debut with sooo, even though I don't know that hero as well, I decided to interview both.  Please bear with the almost-but-not-quite photographs. I got as close as I could, but you'll have to use your imagination a little.  My first hero (second to create, but first to interview) and the be-still-my-heart love interest in my current WIP, Come Back , is Seth Emerson . He's younger than this model, but just as handsome. His typical attire is light brown trousers, a cotton work shirt, boots, hat, and—in winter months—a worn, leather duster stretched across his broad shoulders. His horse's name is Cyrus, and his heroine's name is Rebecca. New Mexic...

Jessie moved from New York to North Carolina one week after school let out for summer break. Her newly single mother and Jessie move in with grandma Gayle. Being a teen in a retirement area, is one more thing to add to her 'this sucks' list. It's bad enough to have to move, but even worse her alcoholic father left them as he went on a quest to be an artist in Greece. Things begin to look up when she is reintroduced to Caleb, the dorky boy that saved her life one summer at the beach. Caleb is no longer scrawny and nerdy, he is now tall, dark and handsome. Caleb is a Light Tamer. Jessie and Amber become fast friends. Amber is a no frills girl, her snarky comments and sassy attitude will raise a few eyebrows and have you laughing out loud. Amber is rough around the edges, a light tamer with only two years left to find the one she is bound to. Her father's surfing accident left her dad paralyzed and her brother dead.  This paranormal romance will ke...

Okay. I'll admit it. I'm an Amazon/Kindle snob. I've been shopping at Amazon.com for years, so, naturally, when e-readers got popular, I bought a Kindle. (And, yes. I did compare the various readers before making my choice.) I like the features of my Kindle Keyboard , and I like the user-friendly web design, the reader reviews, and the service at the big A.  When my mom (the little traitor) bought a Nook and asked me for help, I found it difficult to use, and I found Barnes & Noble's website difficult to navigate. Of course, if she had wireless in her house, it might help. *pointed stare at mom* Now before you assemble a torch-carrying mob and head my direction, let me say: I do like B&N for their in-person service, namely helping me order books in the past, and I love their stores. I also like some of the features of Nooks I've seen (such as page numbers), and, if I'd been using their website longer, I might not find it so confusing. But, by and larg...

Today, I'm tackling the subject of conjugating verbs. If you're like me, you write more properly than you speak. The problem is: we often hear things that aren't grammatically correct, and then translate them into our writing without realizing it. Conjugating English verbs is fairly simple. Most verbs add -ed to for the past and past participle tense. Let's take the infinitive 'to play' as an example. Now in sentences: Today, I play.  ~  Yesterday, I played.  ~  In the past, I had played. That was easy, right? Problems usually arise when dealing with the pesky verbs that don't follow the rules. Ex: Swim, swam, swum. Let's start with one that many people — even the fairly grammar-conscious — often get get wrong: properly conjugating the infinitive 'to drag.' The present tense is 'drag.' Ex: Drag that chair over there, would you? The past tense is 'drug,' right? Nope. It's 'dragged.' (And don't worry. I'm not ...