James D. Best

There are no ugly book reviews — only good and bad reviews.  At least that would be true under the axiom that any publicity is good pu...

I’m a Jane Austen fan. That probably seems odd since I’m male and write Westerns. The Wild West and English countryside have little in co...

No! Well, that's the simple answer. I have a rationale behind my answer: If the friend doesn't like the character — bye, bye...

Robert Peecher, author and journalist, has published an interview with me on his blog. Q. When you started writing did you know St...

I recently ran across Cowboy Values by James P. Owen. The book looked intriguing, but when I went to buy it, I decided to start with Cow...

As a writer of a western series, I don’t read a lot of Western fiction. In the past, I devoured Owen Wister, Zane Grey, Louis L’Amour, Lar...

This is a fun posting on Buzz Feed. Some very good advice, as well.  Before you become too enamored with other authors' perspective on...

Flavorwire has published an article about why authors write. There are many links to source material which are fun to explore. “Th...

"The Shopkeeper did not disappoint. It's well written with deep characters (that we care about) and a swift plot that keeps th...

What fun!  It’s no wonder that Jim is as popular as he is on Amazon and that readers clamor for him to release his next installment of h...

"With all the plot developments the story has a natural fast pace and before I knew it I had reached the end, leaving me wanting to ...

Not only were they popular in the United States, but the whole world devoured them. The Western was a staple of fiction , Hollywood, televis...

Lawrence Block When I transitioned from writing non-fiction to novels, I probably read a dozen books on writing fiction. Now, every thr...

The key to a good story is a good antagonist. The bad guy or bad gal makes the hero heroic. The character of a protagonist can be confinin...

Check out this SlideShare Presentation: Another Time, Another Place, Another story Another Time, Another Place, Another story from ...

I will be making a presentation on storytelling at Trilogy Vistancia on April 22, 2010, 6:30-8:00 pm in the Tewa Ball Room. The event i...

In a previous post I said that novelists should pay close attention to the personalities of minor characters. Cardboard secondary playe...

The protagonist in my Westerns is named Steve Dancy, and people ask if he's modeled after me. I tell them no, but I don't think ...