by Zoe M. McCarthy | Feb 18, 2021 | Writing
Zoe’s book, Tailor Your Fiction Manuscript in 30 Days, is a fresh and innovative refocusing of your novel or novella. Through a few simple—and fun—steps, Zoe helps writers take their not-ready-for-publication and/or rejected manuscripts to a spit-polish...
by Zoe M. McCarthy | Sep 8, 2016 | Writing
I stopped reading “The Chain of Awesomeness” by Jeff Somers (Writer’s Digest July/August 2016). I brought up my first chapter to see if my opening line held the mystery Somers said was more important than shock or coolness (even though they’re good too).My opening...
by Zoe M. McCarthy | Aug 7, 2014 | Writing
“Most people have no idea of the gigantic capacity we can immediately command when we focus all of our resources on mastering a single area of our lives.” —Anthony Robbins We could drown in all the resources available to improve the writing of our novels. But we can...
by Zoe M. McCarthy | Feb 27, 2014 | Writing
“Find the “hook” or the zinger in every sentence, and have characters react to that.” —Susan May Warren You want your dialog to be real, meaningful, and hold your readers’ interest. Here’s what Susan May Warren calls her “super-secret Susie hint to writing...