Blog

I want to help authors create better stories. I specialize in editing Action and Thriller novels.  While I am open to editing all genres, because I am a veteran, I find that I am a huge benefit to authors whose novels have a military flavor.  I love reading Action, Thriller, Science Fiction, and Fantasy.  I look forward to a good story, but I want my clients to become writers of great stories.  To do that, I give them recommendations on how to move their projects forward, identify those parts that are ‘just not working’, and ultimately, make them better writers overall.

With my blog, I wanted to add something to the cyber writer universe with my blog that might not be out there, something that only I could write.

With that in mind, I write four specific blog posts a week –

Analyzing TV series – once a week, I dissect a current episode from a television series using the 5 commandments of creating a scene from the Story Grid methodology.  Currently, I have covered Gentleman Jack, Jack Ryan (Season 1 and 2), For all Mankind, Hanna, Batwoman, and Treadstone.  Breaking down the episodes using the 5 commandments can help readers to see how the writers of the series created a story that worked every week and overall.

Scrivener, Story Grid, and Scenes – once a month I will post about how to use Scrivener and Story Grid in tandem, or some insight I might have about writing in general. I love the versatility of Scrivener and I use the methodology of Shawn Coyne’s Story Grid in all my projects, so it just made sense to me to merge them together and figure out ways to integrate one into the other.  In these blog posts, I include tips that aren’t often known combined with uses for the 5 commandments of story telling and the 6 core questions every editor asks to help write better stories

Writing Military scenes – being retired military, I thought it would be helpful to write a post about presenting good and accurate military scenes. Due to my military career combined with my current profession as a writer and editor, I think I am uniquely qualified to bring a writer’s perspective to writing scenes with a  military flavor – that use military lingo, equipment, rank, weapons, tactics, and situations.  Each month I’ll try and bring something to the table discussing books I’ve read that got it wrong (from popular authors) and how to make yours more accurate.

Analyzing Novels – lastly, I write novel analysis based on what I am reading.  This post will show how the author made a novel that worked (or didn’t work) by abiding by specific obligatory scenes and conventions that you, as a writer, can use in your works.  If you want to know about my editing style, this blog post will give you a good idea of the ideas I use to assist writers to become a better writers.