Writing articles by Melinda Goodin

During my own journey as an unpublished novel writer, I've joined several online and in-person writers groups and listservers. Occasionally I've been asked to give presentations or write articles for them. This sort of thing is a wonderful challenge for me, because I'm an information packrat who just loves to gather and collate and muse upon a topic. I've placed them here for you and would love to hear your opinions about the topics I've addressed.

Please note that I am using referrals to Amazon.com (linked book titles) to raise funds for my writing association memberships. Any link that you click through to them helps me reach this goal.

"Goal setting and New Years' writing resolutions" I don't know about you, but goal setting can be almost as much of a challenge for me as achieving them. This article includes wonderful advice from Vicki Hinze, plus links to other reading resources on the Internet. Good luck and best wishes for meeting your goals in 2004.

"The hero's journey: a path to plotting ." This article evaluates the Journey, and shows how it can be applied to romance by dissecting Susan Elisabeth Phillip's excellent book, "Nobody's baby but mine."

"The hero's journey: a path to plotting. Examining "Lord of the Storm" by Justine Davis." The content of this article is similar to the earlier Hero's Journey article, but shows how the Journey can be applied to futuristic, fantasy and paranormal romance by dissecting Justine Davis' award-winning futuristic.

"Archetypes in the Hero's Journey" This article evaluates character archetypes that appear in the Hero's Journey and psychology, and looks at how it can applied to characters in your fiction to make them serve more purposes and carry your story forward. It serves as a companion article to the earlier Hero's Journey articles.

"Scene and sequel" helps you control the pace of your story, maintain reader interest and help build story tension. It's not as intimidating a technique as most people think.

"The 34 step program for unpublished authors" The title is a joking reference to 12 step programs as most writers know there's no official number of steps to take. It all depends on your current progress and goals. This article can give some advice for evaluating what your progress and goals are.

Using the Tarot to break writers block - Tarot cards can be used as tools for your subconscious mind, and fun tools at that. Perhaps it is that bit of fun and playing with unusual images and ideas that will help break your blocks.

Writing Articles by Melinda Rose Goodin