Craft a Story That Towers Above the Rest You know it when you read it: In page after page and scene after scene, a truly engrossing novel has qualities that set it apart. Authentic characters, a well-rounded plot, and immersive settings work in harmony to create a three-dimensional experience--one you can practically step inside and explore. But while you can recognize this work when you read it, writing it can be much more challenging. Bring Your Fiction to Life teaches you how to build a solid narrative structure and layer in lush, textured scenes to create a story that rings true. You'll learn how to: • Master the three-dimensional aspects of characters, plots, and settings using detailed sketches that define the past, present, and future aspects of each element. • Develop complex opening, resolution, and bridge scenes that expertly lead readers through your fictional world. • Construct and analyze an outline for your manuscript, using tools and techniques to analyze scenes that lack dimensionality. • Brainstorm, research, and draft efficiently and effectively, and juggle multiple projects with ease. Packed with story-development charts, worksheets, and checklists, Bring Your Fiction to Life shows you how to craft a vivid story world that readers will instantly recognize as remarkable.
Someone has unleashed an ancient evil bent on destroying Cassidy Christopher by eradicating the women he loves, one by one... Just one year earlier, Cassidy's daughter, Maddie, was attacked by a creature who can change shape at will; a demon who was unleashed by human hands from its chains beneath The Protector, an ancient oak tree on the Christopher property. Dubbed the "Sweet Dreams Killer," the creature lulls its female victims into a dream state before crushing their bones from the inside out. During a routine prison transfer, the creature escapes and warns Maddie through their telepathic connection that he's coming for her. In the dead of the night, Maddie calls her best friend, Robyn Warren, and their connection is abruptly severed. As Robyn hastens to be with the only family she has, little does she realize that ancient forces are at work. The man she loves has a deadly enemy who hates him enough to have unleashed a demon against him, but who? Can she and Cass fight the evil created for the sole purpose of destroying everyone he loves? Can Cass risk loving another woman he could lose? In the wake of newfound surrender to a love they can no longer fight, Robyn and Cass find they have everything they've ever wanted...except time.
Every poem ever written shows us the eyes of the poet. Looking without. As love mirrors the heart, poetry mirrors personality. Many poets write about things outside of themselves. This mirrors their personal character and the way they look at the world. Looking within. Other poets take the outside world into themselves and use the intimate emotions to reveal their own hearts. Just looking. Then there are poets like me, who do a little of both...or a lot of neither. If you're looking for flowery observations on nature, rhyming pieces with any type of standard or pattern, seemingly meaningless verses that you have to know the ""code"" to understand, you won't find it here. The 39 poems included a combination of honesty, raw emotion, vivid imagery, gritty reality, story metaphors, introspection, depression, and even ""song-like"" verses. Great poetry is something I can relate to, that moves me, that takes the human condition and makes it both frail and somehow beautiful in its starkness.
Amethyst, WI is a small, peaceful town on a pristine lake with an active tourist season in summer. When the air turns chill, the area is transformed into a ghost town with only a handful of lifers who stay. Amethyst is bursting with mystery, romance, and jealousy all-year-round. When Quinn Rutledge and Summer Rosales met on a warm summer night on the shores of beautiful Lake Amethyst, they were both young, all was right in the world, and the only thing on their agenda was romance--one that neither of them wanted to end with the summer and closing of resort town Amethyst's tourist season. Promises and plans were made. Promises were broken... Summer was just about to begin law school with her closest friend--her pole opposite who'd dragged her to Amethyst in the first place. Apple Wooten came from a rich family she didn't appreciate and was sliding her way through life, trying to get the most fun she could out of it--including stealing just to see what she could get away with. Summer found herself in the unfortunate position of taking the blame for one of Apple's thefts, and not only spent time in jail but also was the victim of an inmate's wrath that led to the disfigurement of one side of her face before she was acquitted of all charges and allowed to pursue her law degree. Quinn had a lucrative dream career stretching out before him as an author who'd already won numerous accolades despite his youth. Though he'd returned to his livelihood after the summer with the woman he'd fallen so hard for, his heart prevented him from keeping away until they could see each other again the following summer as they planned. When Summer didn't show up, he'd tried to find her and couldn't. Though he should have returned to his writing, he's instead found himself settling in Amethyst, waiting hopefully, and probably foolishly, through endless winters until Summer comes around...
Rod, JoJo, Jon and Blackie-four gypsies on a solitary road...until love throws a fork in their paths. Can a rogue find love with the girl next door? Not if his ex-girlfriends have any say in it! Bethany Briggs is a wallflower who's always looked for love in the wrong places. Rod Summers is notorious for the string of broken hearted girlfriends he's left behind. Even when she sees a teddy bear beneath his wild exterior, she isn't sure she can trust her heart. But this shy girl-next-door is about to prove that the pattern for leather and lace can be tailor-made.
Rod, JoJo, Jon and Blackie-four gypsies on a solitary road...until love throws a fork in their paths. Jon Rushing has finally found the answer to a lifetime of misplaced guilt and misery. Tracey Scott is unlike anyone Jon has ever met before. She's completely open and honest, ever true to her own heart-and determined to have a baby, ASAP. Even as Jon vows to be everything she'll ever need and Tracey sets her heart on him, the past rears its ugly head. What Tracey wants most of all is the one thing Jon can't give her...unless he can find a way to go back in time and reverse the damage.
Three years ago, Samantha Samuels had suffered under the violent hands of Ryder Feldmann, a juvenile delinquent her pastor father had been counseling. Now she's completed her psychiatry training and plans to help other victims of violent crimes. Unexpectedly, she finds herself sharing an office building with the older brother of her attacker...the very man she'd been in love with before her rape. In the time since Kyle Feldmann's brother was jailed, he's lived with the torment of all he's lost. Seeing Samantha again after so many years puts him right back where he was. Kyle wants to heal Samantha, love her, but how can they be together forever when she's still so broken? As Samantha gives her heart to Kyle once more, her already fractured relationship with the Lord is tested. In the crossfire of faith, she wonders if glass angels shatter beyond recognition when they take a leap of faith, or if they can heal and become stronger than ever before.
For the ten generations since the evil first came to Woodcutter's Grim, the Guardians have sworn an oath to protect the town from the childhood horrors that lurk in the black woods. Without them, the town would be defenselessÉand the terrors would escape to the world at large. Very loosely based on ÒSnow White and the Seven DwarfsÓ by the Brothers Grimm. When the evil in WoodcutterÕs Grim unleashed, humans turned into ghouls who avoided the sun and waterÉand had the innate instinct to contaminate others with their evil. The ProtectorateÑthe guardians sworn to protect the townÑare all that hold the threat at bay. Guardian hunter Reece Pallaton is beginning to believe the battle heÕs waging can never be wonÉuntil he discovers the source of the evil, the mirror thatÕs only the opposite half of the Òglass darklyÓ world he lives in, and his own terrifying connection to both.
A missing engagement ring leads to murder... It's been a month since Denim McHart hung up his private investigating career after he ended up with a bullet in his leg. The injury has forced Den to re-evaluate future goals in his career, his love-life and his spiritual life. To keep himself busy in early retirement, he's been attempting to restore an antique table and he's officially bored. He can't seem to keep his mind off his investigative partner, the lovely and complicated Sylvia Price whom he's had an on-again, off-again romantic relationship with. In this past month, Sylvia has been dealing with her own feelings for Den, her overwhelming guilt for the pivotal event that happened years ago and caused her mother to be mentally unstable. Before the sparks can fly between Den and Sylvia, she says they've got a case. Jilted bride Naomi Deva tells them her groom--Mayor Thomas Julian--dumped her at the altar. The local police department hasn't been able to turn up the 6.1 carat diamond engagement ring.
2-in-1 Supernatural Romance Novellas in one volume! The Amethyst Star: They live in a time when humans have become an endangered species... Thirty years ago, the men and women of Earth went off to fight in an intergalactic war. In the time since, carnivores have flourished and slaughtered most of the human race. Answering Earth's call for help, Hunters have ultra-strength, speed and instincts. Pair-bonding is rare and families no longer exist. Lady Sher of the Amethyst Star is mankind's last hope for survival though her heart's desire can never be fulfilled... On Randolf's home world, a prophecy says that if he loses the rare amethyst star, the hunter will become the hunted for all time. Will destiny and desire prove impossible goals? Creatures of the Night: Loner and Night-owl painter Susanna Heath has just married Nicholai Rostislav who disappears all day, coming to her only at night. Now she finds out that he's a bloodsucking vampire. And you thought your marriage had problems.
Detached and ignored for most of her life, Brayla Sullivan is the awkward, ugly duckling destined for spinsterhood who's never been kissed, never gone anywhere beyond the small town she was born and raised in. When she starts corresponding with a man from a ""Meet Exotic Singles"" website and he suggests they meet, she drops everything to fly to him in a last-ditch effort to find her happily-ever-after. The only son in a family of daughters, Shaun Levi, Peaceful's Chief of Police, has never looked the part of a dashing hero. Brayla has been nothing more than a buddy he's known all his life. But, when a kiss between them on New Year's takes a turn for the what-have-we-done?, he sees a side to his old friend he never anticipated?and the consequences may just leave him without a friend or a prayer of convincing her they could share so much more. What follows is a series of unfortunate events in which everything goes wrong?
Leather & Lace: Can a rogue find love with the girl next door? Not if his ex-girlfriends have any say in it! Bethany Briggs is a wallflower who's always looked for love in the wrong places. Rod Summers is notorious for the string of broken hearted girlfriends he's left behind. Even when she sees a teddy bear beneath his wild exterior, she isn't sure she can trust her heart. But this shy girl-next-door is about to prove that the pattern for leather and lace can be tailor-made... Flesh & Blood: After risking her heart once and learning to regret it, JoJo Summers finds it necessary to live her life as a paper doll. No emotions, no danger and no pain. Randy Briggs is the one man who can change her mind, if he can just break down ten years' worth of her defenses. Getting through to JoJo means uncovering the demons in his own past. But Randy believes in true love and intends to make JoJo a believer too. His only ace in the hole is that she underestimates the power of love. Just when JoJo takes the first step in risking her heart to Randy, her past comes back to haunt her, in flesh and blood. . .and then her heart isn't the only thing she's in danger of losing.
Return to cowboy country in Fever, Texas, where the heat isn't the only thing causing a fever! See if you can find the heirloom wedding band! Easy to love, hard to hold... Maggie May's pa is still looking for the cowboy who knocked up his cowgirl vixen daughter five years ago. Little Tex has grown up without a father, but he's the shining star of the May Ranch. Like his father, though, he's always running off and disappearing. Just when Maggie May thinks it'll never happen, the drifter she loves shows up, suddenly wise to the fact that his oh-so-altruistic efforts to quiet her endless stream of conversation had ended with a child. Horse trainer for hire and former rodeo bullfighter, Ryder McCall returns to Fever, Texas. This time, Maggie May plans to get him back in her clutches--and win his heart forever.
What's a man to do when he's seen too much of life's dark side and suddenly finds himself believing in flesh-and-blood angels who can heal with a single touch? What's a girl to do when she believes in true love but can't trust the eyes of her own heart? Fall in love...reluctantly?
Briar's Point is a whimsical little town with its fair share of colorful characters, crime, and a Cupid suffering from the denim blues... See if you can find denim blue in each story! Working with local private investigators Den McHart and Sylvia Price, Briar's Point Police Department Detective Orlando Bateman solves a missing person case. Keeya Nilsen, visually impaired from the plane crash that took her parents' lives, comes to him and has a justifiably bad attitude about love, since all the men she's ever loved have cheated on her and robbed her...including the last one, who absconded with her most prized possession-her grandfather's unpublished Blues compositions-when he flew the coop. As together they search for her last boyfriend and her missing legacy, Orlando reminds Keeya of the faith she'd had before the plane crash that changed her life and makes her see love as God intends.
Two Inspirational Romance Novellas in one volume! The Amethyst Angel: Elena Lopez's father has decided to play matchmaker, but Elena has a secret. She's always loved Pablo. An amethyst angel belonging to a dying boy reminds Elena that spending her life waiting for something to happen isn't living and that love must be shared. Can she take the risk of telling Pablo her feelings even if he doesn't share her love? A Home for Christmas: All Christie Renata Zondervon has ever wanted is a family, especially at Christmas-time. Craig Stevens has dried her tears, held her hand, listened to her talk about her hopes and fears at any time of day or night. She's never looked at him romantically before... until he invites her to spend Christmas with his family. How does a painfully shy man reveal his heart without voicing the words that could lead to rejection? Craig has given himself twelve days to convince Christie he can be the man of her dreams. Now it's a countdown to win her heart or bust!
Rod, JoJo, Jon and Blackie-four gypsies on a solitary road...until love throws a fork in their paths. After risking her heart once and learning to regret it, JoJo Summers finds it necessary to live her life as a paper doll. No emotions, no danger and no pain. Randy Briggs is the one man who can change her mind. His only ace in the hole is that she underestimates the power of love. Just when JoJo takes the first step in risking her heart to Randy, her past comes back to haunt her, in flesh and blood...and then her heart isn't the only thing she's in danger of losing.
Someone has unleashed an ancient evil bent on destroying Cassidy Christopher by eradicating the women he loves, one by one... Just one year earlier, Cassidy's daughter, Maddie, was attacked by a creature who was unleashed by human hands from its chains beneath The Protector, an ancient oak on the Christopher property. In the dead of the night, Maddie calls her best friend, Robyn Warren. Robyn hastens to be with the only family she's ever known. In the wake of newfound surrender to a love they can no longer fight, Robyn and Cass find they have everything they've ever wanted...except time.
Clumsy GirlÕs Guide to Having a Baby is the follow-up to Clumsy GirlÕs Guide to Falling in Love. Clumsy GirlÕs Guide to Falling in Love begins the tale of Zo' Rossdale, the clumsy girl who always has her elbows, feet, eyes, and brass-red hair going in the wrong directions. Curt Bertoletti has spent years trying to forget the seriously messed-up Zo' and her embarrassing ways. Even as he vows that he wonÕt stray again, he canÕt help remembering how well he and Zo' fit together. TheyÕd truly been two abnormal peas in an even stranger pod. For better or worse, Zo' will always be Zo'Ñthe clumsy girl with her dress tucked into her pantyhose, toilet paper stuck to her shoe and trailing in her wake. If Zo' will always be Zo', the only question left is, can they both live with that fact? Forever? Clumsy GirlÕs Guide to Having a Baby continues the tale of clumsy girl Zo', back, married to the love of her life, Curt, and setting off on another crazy adventureÑmaybe the most fun and dangerous of all. Having a baby!
Thirty-seven-year-old Tamara Wolfe married her childhood sweetheart, Robert, right out of high school and proceeded to have a passel of children who fill her life to capacity. With the last of her children in preschool, Tamara decides to make a business out of her long-time love of creating designer gift baskets. She doesn't expect Robert to be against it from her first word. Robert has always prided himself on giving Tamara the option of staying home to raise the children, just as his father did before him. Since birth, it's been drilled into him that a man who doesn't provide for his family is the worst kind of loser. Although they'd agreed years before their family was complete, Robert considers that perhaps the cure for Tamara's restlessness is another baby. All Tamara wants is a small space of time for herself. Is she being selfish? Or is God leading her to continue being an outdated model of the Proverbs 31 wife--submissive, but never equal?
Dr. Marcus Samuels is a medical missionary in Japan, and his life has been God's work despite a severe anxiety disorder. After 12 years, he aches to start his own family life back in the States. Spurred into motion by his mother's sudden illness, he's caught off-guard when he realizes just how much he'll miss Keiko Oichi, a fellow pediatrician at the Children's Christian Mission Hospital. Keiko grew up in the United States as a foreign exchange student. Her conversion to Christ, as well as getting to know Marcus, have radically altered her emotionally-detached acceptance of her traditional Japanese future. When Marcus says he's leaving Japan for good, she feels lost at the prospect of losing him. When Keiko's parents learn of her conversion and feelings for a Christian man, the couple faces a crossroads in love and faith that will change both of their lives irrevocably.
She has two men, two identities, one choice... Rain Meyers has been in a suffocating relationship for five years, engaged to a man who sees only what he wants to see in her. When Rain finally escapes, she meets a man she can make beautiful music with. Justin Pascal is a songwriter with a past that haunts him. Together they discover common aspirations, a future, love and, ultimately, healing. But Bryan isn't about to give up the glass bottle world he's tried to trap Rain into...even if it means destroying everyone in his path.
Briar's Point is a whimsical little town with its fair share of colorful characters, crime, and a Cupid suffering from the denim blues... See if you can find denim blue in each story! Erin Shanley, a hospice nurse, turns amateur sleuth when she realizes that some of her patients are being swindled out of their life savings by the new "psychic" fortunetellers in Briar's Point. She confides in her neighbor, Detective Tyler Shaw, whom she grew up alongside and considers her best friend. Tough guy Ty has been in love with Erin since their disastrous first attempt at a romantic relationship when they were teenagers. Erin has been skittish about love since she discovered her father was cheating on her mother-and Ty is so much like her father. How can she risk loving a reckless, restless adventurer when her mother's loyalty to a man like that brought her so much pain? But when Erin's bumbling sleuthing attempts arouse someone's wrath, she realizes her heart isn't the only thing in danger.
You don't know what you've got...until it's gone. Mitch has been playing a dangerous game. The lines between black and white, good and evil, saint and sinner are all blurred. Just when he thinks the stakes can't get any higher, in steps the only woman who could ever hurt him and the only one who can heal him. In the space of a skipped heartbeat, he can't imagine having more to gain...and more to lose.
For the ten generations since the evil first came to Woodcutter's Grim, the Guardians have sworn an oath to protect the town from the childhood horrors that lurk in the black woods. Without them, the town would be defenselessÉand the terrors would escape to the world at large. Very loosely based on ÒMetamorphoses: The Story of Pygmalion and the StatueÓ by Ovid. Cheyenne Welsh canÕt forget her past and the disappearance of her younger sister. When she returns to WoodcutterÕs Grim to sell the family property she grew up on, sheÕs confronted with all the nightmare-realities of her childhood, still alive and well, still right where she left themÑdown in the darkness the Deep dwells inside. Her home...
Newlyweds Jasmine Pepowski and Wesley Horace's relationship climbs a rocky ledge when she finds out that her sickly father can no longer live alone without assistance. Jazz can't imagine putting her beloved father in a nursing home, but Wesley isn't crazy
Men and women who have sacrificed their personal identities to live in the shadows and uphold justice for all--no matter the cost. Network operatives Kirsten Ulrick and Ash Barnett go undercover to protect Raven Harris and her husband from their seemingly invisible enemy. When RavenÕs life is threatened because of evidence she and her partner uncovered on a dangerously corrupt man of power, and old, unhealed wounds are pierced again, Raven and Casey must renew their vows or let go forever...dead or alive. Ash and Kirsten accept that they canÕt protect the HarrisÕ without becoming involved in their lives, but seeing the couplesÕ pain reflects their own private torment. For them, there is no life and no love, only duty.
Peter Samuels had lost his beloved wife to a tumor just one year earlier. His grief continues to overwhelm him, especially now that he's the sole caretaker of their children and he's alone once more in the world. Kimberly Wolfe has always loved her boss Peter, but she's loved him from afar. For years, she'd endured his wife's misguided attempts to fix her up. She'd envied Peter and Lydia's love for one another, and, most recently, she'd consoled him in his grief over the loss of his wife and her close friend. But, for as long as she can remember, her domineering father has used the Bible to justify his God-given place as head of the household, destroying Kimberly's mother and her own ability to trust men. An innocent kiss on New Year's leads to a growing awareness between Peter and Kimberly. Can he ever see her as more than an employee and a shoulder to lean on? Can he accept her as a Christian woman who's nowhere near content to live out her life without the love of a man and a family of her own?
Amethyst, WI is a small, peaceful town on a pristine lake with an active tourist season in summer. When the air turns chill, the area is transformed into a ghost town with only a handful of lifers who stay. Populated with colorful characters, Amethyst is bursting with mystery, romance, and jealousy. Come and visit a place where anything is possible all-year-round. Adventures in Amethyst Series is a compilation of all four novellas in the series including ""A Rose for Romeo"" (Book 1) and ""Revenge in Amethyst"" (Book 2), "Reckless Rose" (Book 3), and "Christmas in Amethyst" (Book 4).
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