I was recently asked, “How do you choose and create a protagonist’s flaws?” Simple. The same way you choose and create your own flaws. What? You didn’t choose your flaws? You’d rather not have them? Before you declare me a smartass, that’s a clue to the how part...
An Unlikely Story, or Write What You Don’t Know I enjoy mysteries. I read Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie as a kid. PBS’s Mystery series was and is a favorite of mine. And yet, I fell into writing the Skoghall Series accidentally. I wanted to write a...
I recently watched the PBS Masterpiece mini-series, Endeavour. You might be familiar with Inspector Morse from the Colin Dexter books or the Mystery series. Endeavour portrays Inspector Morse as a young Detective Constable in the 1960s. It’s free on Amazon Prime,...
I’ve been down the rabbit hole for the last couple of weeks. It’s a necessary side venture to writing any novel, and some more so than others. I’m working on book 2 of The Skoghall Mystery Series, Dark Corners in Skoghall, and I hit a wall. Not just any wall—certainly...
There is a special balancing act to be accomplished when writing action scenes. Think of a teeter-totter and put Clarity on one seat and Pacing on the other. Generally speaking, the faster the action occurs, the more you have to slow it down to make it work on the...
I'm Alida I help people express their gifts to the world.
I do not believe in formulas. I believe that the stories we are compelled to tell the world make demands on us, and it is our privilege to meet those demands in order to reach the most people in the most authentic and compelling way possible.
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