Author Heather McCorkle

Last week on the writer's road chat on Twitter, our topic was: Key Elements of a Bestseller. Here are the highlights:  @HeatherMcCorkle Element #1 is a compelling voice, which is easier said than done sometimes. #WritersRoad HeatherMcCorkle So what makes a character's voice compelling? Someone interesting, unique in their own ways. #WritersRoad Tina_Moss Needs to be different voices for each character. If they all sound the same, then uniqueness is lost. #writersroad HeatherMcCorkle Voice is: The sum total of what your characters observe, think, feel, and express in their own unique way. From Writers Digest. #WritersRoad HeatherMcCorkle A great voice, one people want to read and get to know, is the strongest selling point a novel can have. #WritersRoad Tina_Moss Don't be afraid to take the character's voice to the edge. Authenticity over "correctness". #writersroad HeatherMcCorkle One of the best ways to make your character unique and compelling is ...

As an author, I understand the importance of reviews more than I ever did before. They effect reader's decision to buy, which directly effects the success of the book and the author. Unfortunately, it's becoming increasingly difficult for authors, especially indie authors, to obtain reviews for their books. Many reviewers charge for this service, and even more only review books through organized tours where the organizer is paid by the author or publisher. I do not judge either of these practices. With so many books on the market, and more and more of them indie, it can be hard for reviewers to wade through them. In the spirit of helping authors, I make a point to review any book that I enjoy. Most of my reviews are place on the Indie Elite blog, but I thought I'd start giving an excerpt from the reviews here as well. This month I've got to shout out about The Mind Readers by Lori Brighton. I downloaded this eBook from B&N when it was free and I have not been pa...

Today I'm pleased to welcome fantasy author Amy Raby over for an interview. Amy's debut novel, Assassin's Gambit released from Signet books this month! Isn't that cover just beautiful?! No, I didn't design it, but I wish I had! Welcome to my place Amy, it's a pleasure to have you with us. Heather: Assassin's Gambit sounds like a delicious, multi-layered novel. How did the idea for it come about? Amy: Thank you! I had written another book in which Lucien (the hero of Gambit) appeared as a supporting character. Lucien was disabled, obsessed with battlefield and Caturanga strategy, and wicked smart. He stole every scene he was in, and I knew I had to write a book featuring him. The only trouble was pairing him with a suitable heroine. She had to be a strong character, or he would overshadow her. I figured she should be a Caturanga player, like him, since they could bond over that. Then I came up with the idea of making her an assassin sent to seduce an...

Here is an abbreviated recap of the live #WritersRoad chat from last Monday during which we discussed a final checklist to run your novel through before submitting of publishing it: Wyld_Dandelyon Check that your character names are distinct enough to avoid reader confusion. #writersroad @HeatherMcCorkle : Ensure that each character is truly necessary to the story. What do they add? How often do they appear? #WritersRoad HeatherMcCorkle Do a sweep for repetitive phrases or words. Make sure your characters don't appear 'twitchy' unless they're supposed to. #WritersRoad teetate Do sweeps of phrases as well as sweeping out anything that doesn't advance your plot. Including dialog & backstory #writersroad Wyld_Dandelyon But then, you can break _any_ rule if you do it well enough! #writersroad HeatherMcCorkle #1 check: Does something HAPPEN in your novel, does it CHANGE someone, and does it get RESOLVED. #WritersRoad SelenaBlake I have checklists...

I hope you'll join me in welcoming sci-fi author Cassandra Rose Clarke to my blog for an interview. When I read about her novel, The Mad Scientist's Daughter, I knew I had to read it. Heather: A love story between a human and a robot, I love it! How did you come up with such a concept? Cassandra: I’ve always loved robots and robot stories, so it was only a matter of time before I wrote something robot-centric. Around the time I started the book, I was interested in some of the tropes of Gothic fiction, like a big “haunted” house in the woods, an innocent woman, and an emotionally detached love interest. Somehow or another — my process always gets hazy around this point — the two concepts melded together into Mad Scientist’s Daughter. Heather: I love that you melded two concepts together, too cool! This novel is set in a collapsing future America. Can you tell us a bit more about that? Cassandra:  In the novel’s history, a series of environmental disasters threatened to...

Today I'm thrilled to be welcoming my friend and fantasy author, Amalia Dillin over for an interview. Amalia's debut novel, Forged By Fate, just released! Heather: Welcome to my place Amalia! Forged by Fate has been described as "an artful blend of myth and legend" yet it deals with the biblical Adam and Eve. What inspired you to blend the two different elements together? Amalia: Well, Myth and Legend, I don't think, are that different -- they're already blended in things like The Iliad and the Odyssey, where we see this mix of gods and men and history. Sometimes it's hard to tell where Legend leaves off and Myth begins. I think this is very much the case in the Bible, as well. The Creation story in Genesis is a myth, the story of Adam and Eve, or Noah and the flood, or Moses, those might be legends, or maybe they're myths too. It's hard to say! If a Myth is defined as something which explains how or why some natural phenomena, and legend is ...

Those of you who frequent the blogosphere may have noticed an invasion. The explosion of spammers, as I like to call it. Lately they are slipping through the cracks absolutely everywhere on Blogger. I have word verification deactivated on my blog here because quite honestly, it is a pain in the rear and it drives me crazy  personally. However, something has got to give with these spammers spewing all over everyone's blogs. So, I have reactivated the moderation. I'm not quite ready to reactivate word verification because I know how incredibly frustrating it can be for commentors. As a frequent commentor myself, I hate having to jump through it's hoops on blogs that have it activated. It can sometimes take three tries to figure out what those stupid letters and numbers say. And who has time for that? However, with the latest invasion, I completely understand why more and more blog owners are reactivating this feature. In fact, if moderation gets flooded with more spam t...