Writing Tips

How to Support Your Favorite Authors

March 10, 2017By kimventrella 1 Comment

With so many awesome novels coming out this year, I thought it was time to re-post my infographic on how to support your favorite authors. We need stories that help us think, grow and empathize with others, but being an author is a difficult job. We turn ourselves inside out for the sake of our stories. Sometimes we get it right, sometimes we don’t, but either way, the fate of our beloved stories is out of our hands. Our books might speak to a single reader, or a thousand, or a million. Our characters may be praised or vilified. Readers and critics might shower us with love, or thoughtful criticism, or a combination of the two. Trolls might spread hate for the sheer joy of destruction. Success as an author means you open yourself up to all of this, the good and the bad, the helpful and the hurtful. In light of this, I plan to do what I can this year to support my favorite authors as they travel along this daunting path.

Writing Tips

How I Became a Writer

December 13, 2016By kimventrella 1 Comment

My first foray into writing greatness came when I won second place in a Think Ink creative writing contest in second grade. I don’t remember the specifics of my story, except that it was essentially a fan-fiction version of my favorite short story at the time, “The Landlady” by Roald Dahl. Yes, it’s true, second grade me did not enjoy Barbie or Disney princesses; she was much more interested in sadistic landladies who killed and stuffed their guests. As far as I can recall, my story was even named “The Landlady,” a fact I only remember because the announcer at the awards ceremony called it “Bag Lady,” which upset me greatly at the time.

Years later, in fifth grade, bored with the usual, nauseating yearbook messages, I decided to get creative. So, when someone asked me to sign their yearbook, I wrote something like, “Hi, I really hope you DON’T go to an amusement park this summer and have all of your internal organs ripped out by a rogue carousel horse that magically comes to life…Have a great summer!” These messages were so popular that everyone in class lined up to discover the elaborate way in which I hoped they DIDN’T die. After I’d finished, I remember someone saying that I would grow up to be a mystery writer.

So, looking back, I think my journey to writing was appropriately weird and creepy. What about you? How did you first know you wanted to be a writer?

Writing Tips

Writing Memorable Characters

October 29, 2016October 30, 2016By kimventrella 2 Comments

From the misunderstood Lady Macbeth to the beloved Wilbur the pig, some literary characters stick with us long after the story ends. They are powerful, conniving, selfless, greedy and, most of all, far from ordinary. Like Paul Bunyan, these unforgettable characters tower over the rest and make even the most mundane moments seem larger-than-life.

So how can you turn your run-of-the-mill lumberjack into a literary giant? (more…)