by Bethany Maines Recently, I was discussing series and sequels with another writer. The general question was how to connect an overarching story to an individual story. If the books plotline makes sense how do I add in the greater plotline without frustrating the reader with not enough answers, or annoying them with too many […]
by Bethany Maines Recently, I took a workshop on how to convert a novel to a screenplay. It was a fascinating workshop that gave practical tips on how to deconstruct and then reconstruct a novel into a new format. Plot, structure and character development are all core elements of any story telling method and it […]
by Bethany Maines Cross-genre. You’ll hear the term a lot in writing circles. But what is it? It’s book that melds the elements of more than one genre together. Books are coded by something known as a BISAC code that allows libraries to appropriately shelve a book and search engines to find it. The list […]
by Bethany Maines Sci-fi season is done and I’m back to working on mysteries! Yay! Something I’m utterly comfortable with and totally know how to do. Wait… how do you do this again? I think I’ve got genre whiplash. Can I just toss in some aliens at the end of this thriller and solve everything? […]
by Bethany Maines The sci-fi fairy tale anthology Galactic Dreams Volume 2, featuring my novel The Seventh Swan will be released next week. Today, I’m interviewing one of the the other authors featured in the anthology: Karen Harris Tully. Karen generally writes sci-fi YA novels, including The Faarian Chronicles trilogy, and creates elaborate worlds for her […]
by Bethany Maines Last year two other authors and banded together to invent GalacticDreams—a shared sci-fi universe for novellas based on fairy tales. As I mentioned in a blog at the time I was shocked to go through the fairy tales and realize how full horrible things they really were. The shock only deepened when […]
by Bethany Maines This week I’m engaging in a local Seattle event called Noir at the Bar. There are several of these around the country—they’re a collection of live readings from crime writers with a few open mic slots at the end. I don’t do crime exactly. I’m more action-adventure / mystery. If you’re wondering […]
by Bethany Maines I had a friend who was extremely disappointed to learn that the day after Christmas had NOTHING to do with boxing. I don’t know if she was hoping for some sort of tale of a historical rumble at Five Points or Canadians engaging in fisticuffs, but she was quite put out to […]
by Bethany Maines As the year draws to a close, I find myself doing the usual assessment of what I did this year and what I’ll be doing next year. But this year, I’m trying to concentrate on evaluating more through the lens of not just financial success, but emotional success. What was fun for […]
by Bethany Maines In 2017 a Romance novelist friend of mine invited me to be part of an anthology of holiday novellas as part of a marketing event. I said, “Of course!” Did I have a holiday novella? No, I did not. Was it September when she asked and all content was due in November? […]