9 Questions to Focus on Your Hopes and Dreams

Posted on October 23, 2020January 19, 2025 by Judy L Mohr

The last month was a whirlwind dose in reality for me. There are parts of my psyche still wishing I could wake up from the nightmare. No matter how I look at it, life in my little corner of the world changed forever. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.

When life-changing events happen, we often step back and review our lives and priorities, realigning our paths with what really matters. Are we on the path we originally set out on? If so, is it still the right path? If not, is this new path the right path, or have we deviated so far from the dream that we need to shift our focus?

That's what the last month turned out to be for me. That's really what the last few months have been about for me. And this is what I want my readers to do today.

Sit back and examine the path you're on. Are you still working towards your hopes and dreams? Or did life take an unexpected turn? Do you need to adjust things to get yourself back on track? Or do you prefer this new path better? Be honest with yourself.

It's time to assess how far from the dream your current path has taken you.

The difference between a critique partner and a beta reader

Posted on July 31, 2020December 19, 2022 by Judy L Mohr

Getting another set of eyes on that manuscript is vital. Sometimes, we think we wrote something in a certain way, but for whatever reason, what we thought we put on the page isn't what we actually put on the page. Sometimes, we get too close to our stories that we can't see the forest for the trees. Without having that external input, vital issues easily slip through the system.

It can be a costly venture to employ a developmental editor, something that can be beyond the budgets of many writers. But a developmental editor is NOT the only way you can get that vital feedback.

Every writer I know, myself included, uses critique partners and beta readers as part of their editorial process. However, there seems to be some confusion about what these two types of readers do.

It's time to delve into the nitty-gritty as to what makes a critique partner different from a beta reader.

Trick from the Editor’s Hat: Create character style sheets as you go.

Posted on July 3, 2020February 1, 2022 by Judy L Mohr

Editing is a BIG job, and sometimes it can seem like it's taking forever. Trying to get a story to flow and hit all the emotional beats at the right points… Getting your head around the nuances of voice, show vs tell, and the dialogue flow… And we shouldn't forget the dreaded punctuation and grammar.

But sometimes, editing has nothing to do with voice, writing style, or what might be in the dictionary. Sometimes, it's the little details that define our characters or settings that need to be filtered through an entire manuscript (or multiple manuscripts).

When you are working with a long story, the little details can sometimes get lost among the screes of words in all the random notes and files that might be thrown all over the place. This is particularly problematic when working in a series where particular characters might be used in story after story.

To help keep the little details straight, create character style sheets as you go.

Initial communications say more than you know

Posted on May 22, 2020May 23, 2024 by Judy L Mohr

Don't delude yourself: first impressions matter. We judge people by those first few seconds and it is incredibly difficult to change someone's opinion after that judgment has already been made.

"Don't judge a book by its cover." Yet, we do it ALL THE TIME.

There are countless examples where first impressions matter. But the one arena that people tend to forget about is digital communications (email and social media). It has become way too easy to send off emails, treating it like a text message with a friend rather than a business or formal method of communication.

While I can rant until I'm blue in the face about social media interactions, I've already taken the time to look at how one's messages could be a turnoff without even knowing it. Please read that post from last year, because for social media, you need to focus on your target audience and ignore everyone else.

Today, I want to focus on email communications and the hidden messages that exist in those lines of email.

I will be taking examples from some of my communications with prospective clients, paraphrasing and hiding identity of those email writers, but I want to give you some insight into the subtext I garnished from those emails.

When Do You Become An Author?

Posted on May 8, 2020December 19, 2022 by Judy L Mohr

The debate about whether a person is an author or a writer seems to come up frequently. There are those who insist that there is a distinctive difference between the two, something that I have discussed before on my personal blog.

For those who can't be bothered to delve into the depths of my personal blog, according to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, a writer is one that writes (I still want to change that to one who writes, but we move on). Whereas, an author is one that originates or creates or is the writer of a literary work (as a book).

Based on these definitions, I'm stand strong by my belief that a writer is a person who writes. I despise the term aspiring writer, because there is no aspiring about it. You either write or you don't. It's that simple.

However, the transition to the author title is not as clear cut.

Exactly when does a writer become an author?

Plotter vs Pantser: Is one really better than the other?

Posted on October 25, 2019December 19, 2022 by Judy L Mohr

I have found myself in a few conversations lately about the merits of being a plotter or a pantser, with interesting insights on the two different concepts. In reality, the conversations always comes down to how we are all different and how there is no one way to get the initial draft on paper. We all do what we have to do to make the writing happen, but it is interesting how many of us have multiple tactics up our sleeves. Sometimes, we're forced to change gear and try something else.

So, which really is better? Well... It would seem that the answer is nowhere near as simple as the question.

Writing Accent into Fictional Writing

Posted on September 13, 2019December 19, 2022 by Judy L Mohr

You have a character that comes from a particular region of the world. The people from this region tend to speak in a particular fashion. It's distinctive, and the moment anyone hears it, they instantly get a sense of the type of environment that the character came from.

It's only natural to want to put that into our writing. We want to immerse our readers into the world. We want them to experience it. Being able to imagine a character's accent is only part of that experience.

However, building accent into the written form is not a simple matter of slapping a few letters onto the page. Like everything else we do in writing, it takes careful thought and consideration.

Writing accent into your story could add the perfect color to your fictional world, but it could also turn into a reader's nightmare.

Why the Black Wolf?

Posted on September 6, 2019October 12, 2022 by Judy L Mohr

Trick from the Editor’s Hat: The Top-and-Tail Edit

Posted on July 19, 2019May 13, 2025 by Judy L Mohr

It doesn't matter how you look at it, editing is a BIG job. Any little tricks to help make things flow are always handy to have.

Here is just one of the many tricks that I employ when editing both my own and clients' writing, giving me a way to examine story flow.

The Top-and-Tail Edit

The idea behind a top-and-tail edit is that you examine the transitions between chapter and sections, looking at the last paragraph(s) of one chapter and reading the first paragraph(s) of the next. Everything in the middle is ignored. This is only looking at the transitions.

This particular idea is highly effective with the development of the cliff-hanger endings.

Breaking the Fourth Wall: A Literary Term Defined

Posted on July 12, 2019January 14, 2021 by Judy L Mohr