Patricia Stoltey

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“The Ultimate Writer’s Shortcut: From Wannabe to Pro in 90 Minutes.”– a Webinar from Teresa Funke

June 15, 2016 By: Patricia

Here’s a great opportunity from  Teresa Funke and Laura Backes at Children’s Book Insider. The webinar is for all writers, not just those who write for children:   On June 21 at 5:00 p.m. PST/8:00 p.m. EST, award-winning author and writer’s coach Teresa Funke will present “The Ultimate Writer’s Shortcut: From Wannabe to Pro in …Read More

Tag: Children's Book Insider, Laura Backes, Teresa Funke, webinar

Recommended Blog/Article Reads

June 8, 2016 By: Patricia

I have three blog posts or articles to recommend this week: The Rise of Plagiarism in the Age of Self-Publishing by Joy Lanzendorfer in The Atlantic. http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/06/plagiarism-in-the-age-of-self-publishing/485525/ Twitter, Facebook & Pinterest Oh My! by Kerrie Flanagan at The Writing Bug blog from Northern Colorado Writers. http://www.writingbugncw.com/2016/06/twitter-facebook-pinterest-oh-my.html “It’s about connecting to them, not selling to them.” …Read More

Tag: Hot Chocolate Press, Joy Lanzendorfer, Kerrie Flanagan, Northern Colorado Writers, plagiarism, Samantha Sanders, The Atlantic, The Writing Bug, Writer's Digest, Writer's DIgest Conferences

Writing to Publish … by Trai Cartwright

May 21, 2016 By: Patricia

Between us writers, do you write to publish? For those who do, I’m jealous. You seem to have connected with the fundamental reason why we write: to tell others things, important things, playful things, things that entertain and challenge and change us. You’re an Author. And if you don’t write to publish, why not? Is …Read More

Tag: Craftwrite, getting published, Trai Cartwright, Ultimate Pitchfest, writing

Learning e-format Publication … by Rex Burns

May 19, 2016 By: Patricia

One of the most pervasive beliefs in American publishers has been that readers will not be interested in humorous novels or in novels about Latin America. So I wrote The Better Part of Valour, a comic novel set in Columbia. Again and again, American publishers turned it down; in fact, few if any of them …Read More

Tag: formatting for e-book, guest blogger, Rex Burns, The Better Part of Valour

CRIME & CRIMINALITY: The Amateur Sleuth in Regency England … by Darcie Wilde

May 16, 2016 By: Patricia

Ah! The English Regency. The romance! The dances! The genteel manners, the snobbery, and the witty banter! And, oh! Those clothes! It’s a lush, intricate and magnificent setting for almost any kind of story. For a crime writer, though, it’s got some interesting pitfalls, and sneaky advantages, especially when you’re writing a mystery with an …Read More

Tag: A Useful Woman, amateur sleuths, crime and criminality, Darcie Wilde, guest blogger, Regency England

Self-Editing One Step at a Time: Cleaning Up Those Dialogue Tags

March 13, 2016 By: Patricia

To continue my series on self-editing tips, I’m turning my attention today to dialogue and the tags we use to identify the speakers in a conversation. This step may be combined with others during the sentence-by-sentence editing read because it addresses only these three mechanics of labeling dialogue: When dialogue is carried on between two …Read More

Tag: adjectives and adverbs, dialogue tags, dragging narrative, habit words, self-editing, self-editing tips, writing tips

The Future of Fiction … by Jacqueline Seewald

March 3, 2016 By: Patricia

Increasingly, we are seeing the blurring of borders in fiction. At one time, for example, mystery novels always contained certain clearly defined elements. There could be no paranormal explanations. Suspects always had real motives. Murders were not random. Romantic involvements were limited and not detailed. Romance novels also followed tried and true formulas and love …Read More

Tag: Dark Moon Rising, genre formula, Jacqueline Seewald, Mashup, novel writing, The Killing Land

Take a Leap … by Jenny Sundstedt

February 29, 2016 By: Patricia

Poor February. It’s the little brother of the calendar, never quite matching up to the longer months. But every four years, it puffs up its chest a bit with the addition of an extra day. I love the novelty of Leap Day, even though it occasionally gyps me out of a coveted Friday or Saturday …Read More

Tag: guest blogger, Jenny Sundstedt, Leap year, Write Away: A Year of Musings & Motivations for Writers

Self-Editing One Step at a Time: Weeding Out Adjectives and Adverbs

February 22, 2016 By: Patricia

We don’t need to tell smart, intuitive readers everything and we rarely need to tell them details more than once. They will fill in the blanks as long as the blanks are not critical to the story. You can describe a protagonist (male) as 60ish with long gray hair, bronze skin, and a leathery, weathered …Read More

Tag: adjectives and adverbs, self-editing, writing tips

Self-Editing: Finding and Breaking Your Habits

February 16, 2016 By: Patricia

Habit words. That’s what I call them. Some editors lump them into the repetitive word category. Others include them in articles about adjectives and adverbs. I’ve dubbed them habit words because they flow into our writing in the same way they clutter up our speech. The little devils were probably hardwired into our brains when …Read More

Tag: habit words, self-editing

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Meet Patricia

I read, I write, I blog, and sometimes I do the laundry and cook. My 2014 novel, Dead Wrong, was a finalist in the thriller category of the 2015 Colorado Book Awards. Wishing Caswell Dead (Five Star/Cengage, December 20, 2017) is a historical mystery set in 1830s Illinois in the fictitious Village of Sangamon. The novel was a finalist for the 2018 Colorado Book Awards for General Fiction. Read More…

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