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Social Media Minute—7 Tips to Get More Comments on Your Blog

By on May 13, 2014 in Edie Melson, Learn the art of Social Networking, Social Media Primer

Even today—with as many blogs on the Internet as there are—blogging is still a valuable part of building and maintaining an online community. But it’s rare for a blog to take hold and grow, if it’s not a place where comments proliferate. Almost no one likes to be lectured, and that’s what a blog can feel with it the conversation is only one-sided.

I’ll go one step further and add this comparison. Your blog is your Internet home. And because it’s your home, you are responsible for being a good host and making people feel welcome.

Facilitating conversation is just one of the duties of a good host, but it’s the one I want to concentrate on today as I share tips to get more comments on your blog.

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Extreme Book Makeover: 7 Key Ingredients to Creating Powerful Scene Tension

By on May 12, 2014 in 6. Search by Series:, b. Building a Scene, Editing Basics, Extreme Book Makeover, How do I write Tension?, Susan May Warren, writing tension

I watched the season finale of Once Upon a Time last night (*warning! Spoilers!*) and it was one of the best episodes in the series. Why? The tension! The plot was simple – the heroine, who’d finally found her happy ending with her family, accidentally fell back into time, and thwarted the epic, historical meeting of her parents. She pulled a “Back to the Future” and erased her future.

What does she want? To return home and live happily with her family. Her goal – make sure her parents met, somehow. Why? Because after a horrible childhood, she’s finally found a home. What’s at stake? Her life – and her son’s life.

And…standing in her way is the Evil Queen (as well as the lack of magic needed to open the time portal.)

Great set up for the episode – and even better, it makes for exactly the right ingredients to talk about how to create powerful tension in a story – and especially how to keep your Act 2 tension from saggy by creating tension in every scene.

Let’s start a definition of tension. Obstacles and Activity are not Tension. Tension is derived from a sympathetic character, who wants something, for a good reason, and who has something to lose, who then creates a specific, identifiable goal, only to run up against compelling, powerful obstacles, which then creates the realistic fear of failure.

In other words, the MBT Scene Tension Equation.

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Rachel Hauck

The Heart of the Matter: Finding Your Character’s True Desire

By on May 8, 2014 in Editing Basics

As wonderful as craft books are, a lot of times, our best teacher is life and our keen observance of it.

I read a book awhile ago called Live a Praying Life by Jennifer Kennedy Dean. I wasn’t reading it to improve my writing. I was reading it to better understand God’s design for prayer.

But as writers, we usually have that third eye (or ear) open and observant and aware. Ready to soak up some juicy insight. Some truth, some reflection of the human condition that we can apply to our characters and our stories.

So when I came upon this, I immediately switched into writing mode:

Jennifer writes, “Usually, what we call ‘the desire of my heart’ is really a secondary desire orbiting around the true desire. Usually, what we think we desire is really the way we have imagined the true desire will be met.”

She goes on to say, “We think we are asking for the desire of our hearts, but we are really asking for the desire of the moment. Often, in order to give you the desire of your heart, God will withhold the desire of the moment. He only says no as a prelude to a higher yes.”

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Social Media Minute—The Basics for Building a Strong Platform through Social Media

By on April 22, 2014 in Edie Melson, Learn the art of Social Networking, Social Media Primer

Anyone who reads this blog knows I believe it’s possible to build a strong platform through social media. I should, I did it. Beyond that, I’ve helped hundreds of other writers do the same things.

But with all the posts I’ve shared over the years, I haven’t lately laid out all the basic building blocks, at one time—in one place. Today I’m going to do just that.

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