James D. Best

Curiosity.com published a list of writing tips from Mark Twain. Now, Twain never actually published a list, but his letters provide...

Partial Outline for Tempest at Dawn I believe novels are like wine, they need to age in a metaphorical cask for just the right amount...

Mark Twain didn't like James Fenimore Cooper’s writing. Wait, that was far too mild of a sentence. In his article “Fenimore Cooper'...

Aspiring writers frequently agonize over words, sentences, and paragraphs. They want to get every piece of it right. Because they admire gr...

Writer’s Digest did a piece titled, “10 Things Shakespeare Can Teach us About Writing Thrillers.” The ten tips actually help with any genr...

I’m not a purist. My own westerns are about miners instead of cowboys, my plots delve into the politics of the frontier, and my protagoni...

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...

You can buy innumerable books about how to write fiction. I have bookshelves full of them. Some help, but most are regurgitations of the sa...

Not too many posts lately because my brother is visiting from Hawaii and we're surfing everyday at Tourmaline Beach. My sister is also h...

In a previous post I wrote about giving the reader a clear signal that the point of view was about to change. It all depends on how yo...

Frank. A true black hat villain. Characterization is a crucial aspect of fiction. We know this because it's drilled into us a...

I love editors. The reason I love editors is they save me from embarrassment. I make errors and typos with punctuation and seem to miss ...

Hemingway ... presumably editing Emily Temple has posted on article on Flavorwire titled "Bad Writing Advice from Famous Authors....