Writing Compelling Fiction

I’m back from a last-minute trip to San Diego! It was amazing weather and an exquisite location for filming an origin story for a CEO. We stayed in the absolute coolest hotel in the Gaslamp District. The Horton Grande was built in the 1880s and had all kinds of little historical vignettes throughout the building, including a life-size papier-mâché horse with a mane created from the horses that pulled the firetrucks back in the day.

I got to run along the water and do those huge stairs that take you from the street to the waterfront (and my calves are still sore!) and catch an incredible sunset.

Have you ever been to San Diego? It really is my favorite city in America that I have seen so far.

I got so many rejections when I first started writing, I literally have a banker's box full of them in the closet. Book after book after book after book. But I kept going, kept learning, and finally realized how to write a compelling novel.

A big part of success is perseverance because if you quit, you can never succeed. It's hard to keep going, sometimes really, really tough because rejection is so disheartening. But keep going. The world needs to read your stories.

If you want a career as a writer, you have to think like a businessperson. Because this is a business to everyone who invests in your book. Yes, it's your creation, a part of your heart, but you need to be able to target your market in order for that market to find you and read your amazing story.

Check out the full video on my channel (link in bio).

It was really cool to run into Richard Drummer in the wild and hear that he took my recent class with Outliers Writing University! I’ve tagged them here so be sure to check out the classes, the great community, and so much more! D. P. Lyle Kathie Antrim

Your first pages are a promise to the reader that you have to deliver on. It's hard--not going to say it's easy to write a great novel from beginning to end. But if you can come close to that promise, the reader will stay with you and buy your next book.

Check out my channel (link in bio) for in-depth writing craft videos and much more!

This is an easy way to help the reader see another side of your Character. Good or bad, a mirror Character can show your main Characters what life could be like (or not like) and also gives them a perspective on themselves. Have you read a book with a good mirror Character? What did that bring to the story?

A quick and easy way to SHOW your Character's growth instead of telling it. Full video at link in bio (along with dissections of Scenes to show you exactly how to put one together!).