Creating Characters Not Like You

Every Monday, writers can now look forward to starting their writing week right with an inspirational writing exercise! We’re starting with something everyone is familiar with–character building. 🙂

1)     One problem many writers encounter is how to create characters that are significantly different from themselves.  Sure, the character may be a nineteenth century male archeologist excavating in Egypt, and the author a hometown girl who has never left the state she was born in, but does that character react like its creator when angry?  Frustrated?  Joyous?  Successful?  An exercise I’ve found helpful is to consider a specific situation or problem in my own life, write briefly about how I handled it, and then put my character in the same situation and consider how he or she would handle it, concentrating on the differences between us…and making sure there are some!   I often discover qualities and emotions I didn’t realize my character possessed doing this exercise. 

 

For example, I have a character who is an adolescent girl confronted with a very strange young man who, while not violent or overtly threatening, is either from another dimension or mentally disturbed.  As a fifteen year old in a similar situation, I was very polite, very shy, and very scared: how do I get out of here as quickly as possible without hurting anybody’s feelings?  My character is also scared, but feeling even slightly threatened leaves her confrontational and unconcerned with being polite, or with getting the heck out of there.  She is, for the moment, ready to stay and make her points clearly. 

When and how do you and your character react differently? How would your own character react?

Actions Speaks Louder Than Words…Especially in Fiction

E.Tip of the Day: Everyone’s heard the expression, “Actions speak louder than words.”

Actions do speak louder, especially in fiction. Which scenes do you remember better from books you’ve read? Where characters are showing how they live their lives. Exploring, building, cleaning, fighting, saving someone’s life, or protecting their own, etc.

Scenes with action should draw the reader in, put them on the edge of their seat (if written correctly) and engage the reader with the story. Although inner thoughts and exposition is needed to show some details of the story, the actions of the characters will be –in most cases– more memorable in the reader’s mind. So, as you’re writing this week, think about what you’ve done in your life, and which actions you’ve taken to show what type of person you are personally. Then, take it those memories a step further with your writing. Show what your characters are doing, and what makes them stand out. Use the five senses to explore, and describe their actions.  And most of all, have fun with it! 🙂

Writer’s Wednesday Meet Alice Duncan, Author of the Spirits’ Series

We’re so excited to have Alice Duncan as our guest today. I first worked with Alice a few years ago on one of her earlier Daisy Gumm Majesty Spirits’ novels. I fell in love with Daisy instantly. I, at that time in my life, had never met a character like her. I enjoyed reading about her adventures, and got sucked into her world–in a good way. Daisy is full of spunk–just like Alice is in real life. We worked together on Hungry Spirits, Genteel Spirits, and High Spirits, and it was one of most enjoyable times in my editing career. If you enjoy female characters who never give up, check out the books about Daisy Gumm Majesty and Alice’s other novels. Maybe next time we’ll learn about how she came up with Mercy. 🙂

Award-winning author Alice Duncan lives with a herd of wild dachshunds (enriched from time to time with fosterees from New Mexico Dachshund Rescue) in Roswell, New Mexico. She’s not a UFO enthusiast; she’s in Roswell because her mother’s family settled there fifty years before the aliens crashed. Alice no longer longs to return to California, although she still misses the food, not to mention her children, one there and the other who is in Wyoming. Alice would love to hear from you. You can contact her at alice@aliceduncan.net or visit her website at www.aliceduncan.net or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/alice.duncan.925

I’m sure everyone’s heard authors are always asked where their ideas come from. Truth to tell, I can’t remember anyone ever asking me that question. Go figure.

However, I love writing stories set in the 1920s, because the era is so fascinating. Think about it: the War to End All Wars had just ended (unfortunately, WWI didn’t end all wars); people were freaked out; the entire world was floundering in a depression; a gigantic influenza epidemic had wiped out almost a quarter of the world’s population (and this, right after the war); young people were feeling as if nothing mattered (read F. Scott Fitzgerald if you don’t believe me); they began rebelling in earnest, drinking and dancing to *jazz* and frittering their lives away, thereby freaking out their parents; the Volstead Act was passed, making the distilling and selling of liquor illegal (thus spawning an era of violence almost worse than what we’d been through in the war). People were struggling to make sense of a world that just didn’t seem to make sense any longer. It’s an absolutely fascinating era.

Anyway, something rather interesting occurred several years before I began writing novels, and I used the experience in my “Spirits” books, starring Daisy Gumm Majesty, spiritualist extraordinaire, who supports her husband and herself in Pasadena, California, in the early 1920s. Daisy’s sixth book, ANCIENT SPIRITS, was published in January 2012. You can read all about it here: www.aliceduncan.net

A long, long time ago (well, maybe twenty years or so), my daughter Robin and her then-boyfriend went to a yard sale in Pasadena, CA, where they found an old, beat-up Ouija board. They decided to pay the fifty cents the yard-sale person was asking for it. When they did so, the person said, “Be careful of that thing.” Naturally, Robin and Otto (the boyfriend in question) thought she was joking.

So they took the Ouija board back to Robin’s apartment and started playing with it. The board came with the usual triangular planchette, and Robin and Otto sat across from each other and placed their fingers lightly on the planchette. Instantly, the planchette moved to the letters painted in a double crescent above the numbers on the board. In astonishment, Robin and Otto watched as the planchette spelled out, “Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom.” Nothing else. Just “Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom.”

A little freaked, Robin brought the board to my house. Not that she thought the board was asking for me. She just thought maybe if she used it in another location, it might be more informative. So we sat in my living room, the Ouija board on a table between us, settled our fingers lightly on the planchette and asked if there was a spirit in the room. The planchette zoomed to the word “Yes” in the upper left corner. Robin and I stared at each other for a second, then we both shrugged and asked if the board’s spirit could enlighten us about the curious incident of the “Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom” thing.

The spirit seemed to have a little trouble communicating, but it could answer yes-or-no questions. Eventually, Robin and I learned that a troubled young man used to live in Robin’s apartment building. We never did learn who the young man was, but he clearly had a mother problem. We’d already kind of figured that out. Then, because we were still curious, we asked the spirit his name. Very slowly, the planchette spelled out “Rolly.” Rolly? Strange name. So we asked it more questions.

Honest to God, it turned out (if you believe in these things) that Rolly has been with me all my life. According to him, we were married in the eleventh century in Scotland. We had five sons together. Sounds ghastly to me, but Rolly claimed we were soul mates, and he’d be with me forever. Both Robin and I agreed that, if you have to be haunted by a spirit, it’s kind of nice if it’s one that adores you. In my personal case, given my history with men in this life, it’s also probably a good thing that he’s been dead for a thousand years.

Because I was puzzled by Rolly’s inability to spell well, I asked him about this deficit in his education (trying to be very polite about it). Turned out Rolly was a soldier, and in Scotland back then, soldiers didn’t need no schooling. They needed to be able to be really, really strong and kill people. So. Okay. Not only did I have a soul mate following me through my life (or my many lives, if you believe those things), but I, who write books for a living (well, all right, I don’t. But I’ve had a bunch of books published, and if there was any fairness in the world I’d be earning a living at it), have an illiterate forever devotee. Gotta love it.

By the way, my half-brother once told me that spiritualism runs in the family. When he was a little boy, his mother and aunts used to drag him to séances all the time. Whenever there was a bump in the house, his mom would tell him, “Oh, it’s just Edna.” Edna had died several years earlier. I didn’t know about this until after my first Daisy books were published.

Anyhow, when Daisy Gumm Majesty appeared in my cluttered brain in 2002 or thereabouts and told me she was a phony spiritualist in Pasadena, California, in 1921, I decided to give her Rolly. What the heck, y’know? Why should I have all the fun?

Thank you, Alice, for being our guest today, and sharing with us how Daisy and Rolly came about. If you have questions for Alice, she’ll be with us all day. Please help us in congratulating her on having two novels–Genteel Spirits and Fallen Angels becoming  2012 finalists at the New Mexico Book of the Year awards.

Edit of the Month for November and December 2012

We have Special Editorial Rates For November And December! 🙂

Do you have a completed YA novel, or an almost complete one? Our Novel Edit of the Month category for November is Young Adult. Receive a $300.00 flat rate for any YA novel 55,000 words or less. The YA novel can be any sub-genre but must be received on or before November 30th, 2012.

NANOWRIMO:

Happy National Novel Writing Month! 🙂 For some writers, today is the beginning of a new novel.  In honor of all the hard work authors across the globe will be putting in this month, Written Dreams will be offering a special Novel of the Month Edit rate to those participating. In December, any 65,000 word or less novel will receive a $350. editing rate. What’s the catch? Writing that novel in November 2012. We believe in you, and want to see as many writers succeed at this goal. We’re hoping our special general rate not geared toward any specific genre will inspire writers to get the job done!

We understand you’ll want to proof your novel, adding in extra details here and there once you have the bare bones down, so as long as the manuscript is received in December 2012–even Dec. 31st–we will honor the one-time flat fee rate of $350. for editing your novel. 🙂

Contact Brittiany at brittiany@writtendreams.com if you have any questions about editing rates. Or see our website for more details. Thanks!

Writer’s Wednesday with Tim Waggoner: Avoiding What’s Been Done To Death

Having a horror writer as today’s guest–it being Halloween– seemed to be fitting. I was first introduced to Tim’s writing over ten years ago by a mutual friend. I was looking for a few writers to invite to write stories for an anthology I was putting together, and it was suggested I contact Tim. After reading Tim’s short stories, I was hooked. He’s a talented writer, and a wonderful person.  I’m thrilled to have Tim as our guest today!

Tim Waggoner wrote his first story at the age of five, when he created a comic book version of King Kong vs. Godzilla on a stenographer’s pad. It took him a few more years until he began selling professionally, though. He has published more than twenty novels and two short story collections. He teaches creative writing at Sinclair Community College and in Seton Hill University’s Master of Fine Arts in Writing Popular Fiction program. He hopes to continue writing and teaching until he keels over dead, after which he wants to be stuffed and mounted, and then placed in front of his computer terminal. Visit Tim’s website at: http://timwaggoner.com/

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” –H.P. Lovecraft

Writers often refer to the above quote when discussing what makes great horror fiction, but when they do so, they’re usually referring to the fear part. But I want to highlight the word unknown, specifically referring to the elements writers build their stories from. Genre fiction is marked by certain shared elements called tropes, but when a trope becomes too familiar and overused, it loses it power and descends into cliché. The princess that needs rescuing by a handsome prince, apocalypse survivors named Adam and Eve, a character doesn’t realize until the end of the story that he or she has been dead all along . . . Each of these ideas may have been fresh once, but now they’re stale to the point of fossilization.

Clichés like this are especially deadly in horror fiction. Once something is known, it can’t be unknown. Vampires, werewolves, witches, zombies, knife-wielding serial killers, abduction-obsessed aliens, haunted houses . . . An audience raised on a steady diet of horror – especially horror movies – has encountered each of those tropes and more dozens of times, and if you use them in your horror fiction, you’re more likely to elicit yawns of boredom then you are shivers of delight.

But there are ways to take dull, flat tropes and, like Dr. Frankenstein cobbling together a new creation from bits and pieces of the dead, make them live again. Let me tell you how.

Deconstruct Tropes:

Tropes exist because they embody a primal idea. The trick is understanding what that idea is. Take Jason from the Friday the 13th movies. What does he look like? He’s a silent figure who wears a white mask and featureless dark clothing, carries a bladed weapon and relentlessly hunts down his victims. Remind you of any well-known myth image? If any of you said the Grim Reaper, go the front of the class. White hockey mask = skull face. Dark clothes = black robe. Machete = scythe. Jason worked so well for audiences because they instinctively recognized the trope he was built on. He’s the embodiment of Death.

In my story “Anubis Has Left the Building,” I wrote about the ancient view of death versus a modern view. Anubis embodies the old gods of death: mysterious, powerful, terrifying, and majestic. For the modern god of death, I used a disaffected youth to whom the end of life is nothing more than a simple biological process. As he says, “Sometimes meat moves, sometimes it doesn’t.” Anubis represents an old trope, and the youth represents that trope deconstructed and reworked for the modern age.

In my novel Darkness Wakes, there’s a creature called the Overshadow. If you feed it the life force of another, it will directly stimulate the pleasure center of your brain, giving you ecstasy unlike anything you’ve ever known. At no place in the novel do I use the word vampire, but that’s the trope I built my monster from. By reworking tropes, I’m able to avoid reader’s preconceptions, and I can focus on the concepts underlying those tropes. In the case of Darkness Wakes, I wanted to focus on the ideas of symbiosis and addiction, and the Overshadow allowed me to do this without centuries’ worth of vampire baggage getting in the way. You can do the same with your stories. Pick a trope, strip it down to its essential core, and then rebuild it. Or to put it more simply, take your trope shopping and buy it some new clothes.

Use Tropes From Other Cultures:

Remember when Japanese-inspired horror was all the rage in America? Movies like The Ring and The Grudge were big box office, and the reason was simple. They presented tropes that were fresh to American audiences. Of course, those tropes have become clichés of their own now, but there’s still a world’s worth of legend and myth for you to draw on to help you write your own stories.

For example, I recently heard that according to an Hawaiian creation myth, our universe was born from the death of a previous universe, and the only creature to survive this process of destruction and rebirth is the octopus. Now, you don’t have to use this myth in its entirety. You can take the basic concept of an endless process of universes dying and being reborn, with one creature from the previous universe always surviving. Maybe this survivor hates the new universe and is determined to bring about its death. Maybe this is how the cycle is supposed to work. That would mean the “monster” is actually a vital part of the cosmic scheme of things, and in that sense, not a villain at all.

And there you have a brand-new trope, born out of another culture’s myth. All it takes is a little research and a little imagination.

Find Analogues of Tropes:

Let’s say you want to write a zombie apocalypse story, but – ever mindful of to avoid clichés in your horror – you want to create something fresh. Pick one aspect of the trope and take a step sideways with it. In this case, let’s choose the contagion aspect of the zombie apocalypse, along with the loss of identity. Maybe some force – the government, an evil corporation, a foreign power, extraterrestrials – have created a virus that destroys a human’s psyche, overwriting it with a single personality and set of memories, effectively creating a race of mental clones who are really many expressions of one individual. No flesh-eating, reanimated dead here, but that’s the point. You’ve grabbed hold of an old idea, taken a “step to the left,” as they say in Rocky Horror, and by doing so made it seem new again.

Combine Tropes Or Elements of Tropes:

Take a werewolf, an evil spirit inhabiting a mortal body, and a serial killer, throw them into your mental Mixmaster, and viola! You have a character who, when the sun goes down, becomes possessed by the spirit of a killer. Take a mad scientist, the concept of eternal punishment in Hell, and witchcraft. Mix well, and you get a scientist who’s created a virtual reality program that simulates Hell, perhaps as some kind of extreme psychological therapy. But one of the subjects in his experiment is taught dark magic within the simulation – magic that somehow actually operates in the real world, much to the scientist’s dismay.

Learn to mix and match tropes like this, and you’ll have an endless supply of story ideas.

Create Your Own Tropes:

Aristotle said the only way to get to the universal is through the particular. Want to find new tropes to create your horror from, tropes that will strike a universal chord in your readers? Then start by taking a good look inside yourself.

What are you (and no one else) afraid of?:

      Death, torture, mutilation, the loss of a loved one – especially a child . . . Humans share so many fears. But if you want to create a new trope, you need to find out what you as an individual are afraid of that’s unique to you.

When I was a child, my sister and I were afraid of feathers and band-aids. I can’t remember which of us was scared by which item, nor do I remember why we found them so frightening. But those innocuous objects don’t, in and of themselves, conjure up feelings of fear for most people. That makes them ripe ideas to base new tropes on.

When I was in fifth grade, my dad took me to see Jaws in the theater. Not long afterward, I was taking a shower, and it occurred to me that I was surrounded by water, like in the movie, and I imagined a shark emerging from the shower head, expanding to full size as it came, like some kind of bizarre cartoon character. It’s a strange imagine, one I could easily base a new trope on.

Look To Your Dreams:

I have to admit to not having a lot of experience in this area. My dreams are usually quite dull, consisting of me talking to people I don’t know (and no, I don’t remember what we talk about). But sometimes I have nightmares of all the lights going off and someone pounding violently at the front door. And sometimes I dream of wandering through an endless series of rooms with no way out. Neither of these scenarios seems all that interesting to me, but I know people who have wild, incredibly vivid dreams. And if you’re lucky enough to have an interesting dream life, make it a habit to record your dreams in a notebook every morning upon awakening. I bet you’ll come up with numerous original ideas for your horror fiction, thanks to your own subconscious (which is no doubt far more inventive than mine!).

Pay Attention to the Wonderfully Weird World Around You:

      I do this a lot. I make it a point to be, as Henry James said, one of those people “on whom nothing is lost.” I’m constantly looking around, checking out my environment in search of anything that strikes me as a strange. As soon as I see something cool, I open the note app on my phone and write it down before I forget it. I figure that if I’m the only person in the world who notices something, then it’s bound to be a new trope when I eventually incorporate it in a story.

For example, I often write in Starbucks, and one time in the very store where I’m now at (sitting, as a matter of fact, at the same table where I’m writing this), I saw a man staring at his laptop, muttering over and over, “What are you doing here? What are you doing here?” I also once saw a woman breathe on her hand and then wipe it across the seat of a chair before sitting. Also at this store I once saw a girl child wearing what looked like a wedding ring. I’ve already used the muttering man in a story. The hand-breather and child bride are still on my list, waiting to be used.

While driving around town, I once saw a vehicle that had the word Soulless on it and a personalized plate that read SKINNER. Intrigued, I followed it to a restaurant called the Chop House. And people wonder why I write the kind of stories I write.

All of these images/events are things that I noticed. Who knows what kind of things you’ll notice if you start paying more attention to your surroundings? And that’s the point – we don’t know. We can’t. And that’s why what strikes you as strange and interesting can make for the most original horror tropes of all – because they’re your observations and no one else’s.

So go forth and venture into the unknown – and make sure to take the rest of us with you. To paraphrase Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: you have such sights to show us.

For Further Reference:

Not sure what ideas are clichéd in horror? Then check out these sites:

“Horror Cliches” http://horror.about.com/od/horrorthemelists/ig/Horror-Movie-Cliches/Dollheads2.htm

“10 Cliches Horror Writers Should Try to Avoid” http://writinghood.com/writing/10-cliches-horror-writers-should-try-to-avoid/

“Horror Fiction: Ten Cliches to Avoid” http://horror.fictionfactor.com/articles/cliches.html

“Horror Stories We’ve Seen Too Often” http://www.strangehorizons.com/guidelines/fiction-common-horror.shtml

“51 Worst Horror Movie Cliches” http://www.dreadcentral.com/story/51-worst-horror-movie-cliches

Thank you, Tim, for being our guest today, and for the great tips! In case you’re wondering, yes, Tim did write a story for me. Two, in fact. 🙂  “Fixer-Upper” appeared in Single White Vampire Seeks Same, and “All In the Execution” for Places To Be, People To Kill. If you have questions or comments for Tim, he’ll be with us all day. Thank you!

Writer’s Wednesday, Author Eleanor Tatum With Her New Novel, Swamp Run

Social media can be a fun way to meet people, and that’s exactly how I first met Eleanor, on the Written Dreams Facebook page! We’re so excited to help Eleanor promote her latest novel released in early September. Please help me welcome Eleanor to The Editing Essentials!

http://swampwriter27.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/eleanor.jpg

Never a fast runner, Eleanor Tatum discovered the joys and advantages of walking. She would listen to classical music and remember the wildlife around her swamp. She would wave at the passing drivers as if thanking them for not hitting her. While she walked, she would imagine their faces in a romantic plot and surround them with the ducks, cranes and yes, the alligators. Before giving up her day job, Eleanor would walk in the mornings and swiftly jot down her ideas. The ideas turned to research, and the research to background and plot. She found it both exciting and soothing. Publication brought the willingness to share, to entertain, to offer an escape. Eleanor lives with her handsome, brilliant husband, and the turtles, bugs, cranes, ducks, water weeds, and yes, even the alligators in the swamps of southeastern North Carolina. Visit her website and blog at: http://eleanortatum.com

Cooking Advice

     “I could write a book.”

Soon after the publication of my first novel, I heard those words spoken and the meanness in me silently screamed, “Yeah, but you didn’t.” So many people say they can write a book, but never do. The speaker went on to say a few caustic remarks about her husband. If that’s what she would write about in her book, it probably wouldn’t sell unless his hair had fifty shades of gray. My acquaintance with the marital problems should instead write her book pitting her husband’s character against an active problem in a solution-supporting setting. Then, she’d most likely be successful.

The fictional books I’ve enjoyed the most, (of course, yes, mine included), took the subjects (husbands, drugs, travel, or poisonous blooms in India) mixed with fascinating characters, sensual settings, plausible plots, and sensuous solutions.

The mixture from Swamp Run stole bits and precious pieces from my childhood, such as Bostonian attorneys. Some were taken from my travels along Interstate 95, both north and south. Real settings were mixed with fictional solutions to please my romantic heroes. A forest fire was survived by this author sans the tall oak tree. There’s really a lovely state park near my swampy home and, of course, the island and alligators are real and respected.

Swamp_Run

Mixture is the key.

If you want to have a novel readers will enjoy, use a variety of culture, characters, and storyline. Since my next novel is Swamp Secret, I have two thirds of the project completed. Now for the characters stirring the mix…how about a beautiful medical researcher solving crimes with a handsome gambling addicted lawman?

Thank you, Eleanor, for your sharing your experiences with us! Please feel free to share comments or questions with Eleanor. She’ll be with us all day. Thank you!

Building a Local Readership

E. Tip of the Day: Having a successful writing career takes many different skills. Knowing how to market your novel(s) to a broad audience is one of the most important skills you need to be educated in. Contact us if you’re struggling to market your novel. We can help!

How to build local readership:

1.      Visit all book stores, libraries, schools, universities, craft fairs, and any other large gathering places in your area. Ask if you can do book signings.

2.      Send over-sized post cards out to libraries/book stores/businesses. Cross-market  especially with those businesses that may have an interest in displaying the theme of your novel. An example would be: Dorothy St. James writes the White House Gardener series and promotes the books in flower shops/greenhouses.

3.      Take out small print ads in community magazines/newsletters/musical programs. For instance, local ads in a school sport or music program. This is a great way to build local readership, and support the fine arts in your community.

4.      Ask your favorite local radio and TV stations to do an interview with you. Send them a short summary of your novel and an author bio. Tell them you are a fan of their show.

5.      Arrange to read a selection of your story or chapter 1 to high school students in English class, or in the library, with a Q & A session afterwards. Leave a signed copy of your novel with the person who helped you set up the event.

6.      Give out a free copy of your book for the holidays to three winners for gifts on your website, blog, Twitter, or Facebook page. Send the winners an autographed copy and a nice letter thanking them for entering the contest.

Good luck! If you’d like more tips on marketing, contact us at brittiany@writtendreams.com. Thanks!

Nose in a Book Photo Challenge

My kids are all avid readers, and all year long can be caught with their nose in a book. Post your photos of someone reading your novel on our Written Dreams Facebook page to win an exclusive blog review about your book. Keep it clean, folks. Photos should be a PG rating. We’ll notify the winner in December. Here’s a sample photo:

Sami reading a Sookie Stackhouse novel

Just Write…Anything

E.Tip of the Day: Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot of concerns from writers about how hard it is for them to stay motivated to write. Having that urge to put forth great stories and strong characters continuously can be daunting at times. Asking for help can be even tougher. Writing is a lonely occupation after all. Or is it?

Yes, writing can be lonely but it doesn’t have to be. If you’re struggling with getting words on the page for a week or two, or more, let us know. We’ll help motivate you to getting the right words on the page again. That’s what we’re here for. That’s part of the reason Written Dreams was formed. 🙂

Motivation to some people can be a no-brainer. If you want to do something, than do it. Clear. Concise. And to the point. No complaining. No wondering. Task complete. Simple, right?

No, not quite. Writing is a craft, and with every craft comes the need for creativity. Without that creativity you end up having a flat, life-less story. But, what most writers don’t realize is it’s okay to have a little flatness. It’s okay to write something horrible. It’s okay to stay on the page typing random letters and numbers once in a while. And it’s okay to write something that you will toss out later. Because the important thing here really, is that you’re writing–whether it makes sense or not every day is not important. If you have to get through a few hours of writing a story of silly, random made-up words, you might look at the screen and think you’re nuts. You’re not nuts. Really, you’re not. And just the act of writing something unconventional will motivate you. Try it, and see. 🙂

If you’d like more info on our Coaching services, please see the Coaching Tab on our website under Services. We’re happy to help in any way we can with furthering your writing career! 🙂