Nadene's Page

In my workbook The Sense-ible Writer, I walk students through the process of writing a marketable novel. In this series of blog posts, I’ll provide guidelines the beginning writer can use to evaluate his/her idea for writing a novel.

Many people seem to harbor at their core, a hunger to write fiction. In writing classes I teach online and in the standard class setting, students inevitably ask variations of th… Continue

Have you ever holed up in your room so you could read a book?

Have you ever read through the night, knowing you’d regret it the next day?

Reading has become an essential part of our lives. As a result, we probably recognize good writing when we experience it, although this may be on a subconscious level. However, if we consciously analyze the books we read, we can—almost by osmosis—add to our knowledge of the writing craft .

With every novel you read, find something you can apply to your own… Continue

Many writing errors can result in the rejection of a manuscript. In this post I'll address the error of "Conflict."

Most of us tend to duck confrontation in our lives.

As writers, the characters in our books almost become extensions of ourselves, and we hate to see them suffer. Part of writing memorable fiction is to put our characters in the middle of a mess, and then cut off every avenue of relief until the character (along with the reader) thinks all is lost. Only through your character’s p… Continue