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Jane Austen Time Traveler – Bonus Character Interviews, Part 1

Some authors interview their characters. I enjoy that idea, but I decided to put a spin on it, and have characters interview each other. This week: Jane Austen, 200 years in the future, interviews her host and superfan Will Fleming, while visiting his estate. JANE AUSTEN INTERVIEWS WILL FLEMING

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Jodi Taylor’s Time Travel Series – a Book Review

Review of Jodi Taylor’s Time Travel Books If you could spend an hour in another century, where would you go? Would you time travel to watch a famous battle or attend a royal ball? Would you want to solve a mystery or observe daily life in another time? And if you time traveled in history and saw unexpected events, would you then try to set the historical record straight? That’s the premise of Jodi Taylor’s…

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Magical Realism & Time Travel – the What-If Game

History and magic are a powerful combination. Time travel can be a form of magical realism fiction, depending on the writer’s approach. In a magical realism treatment, you’re in one world and then another opens around you like a blossom. In my magical realism style of time travel, there are laws to the ability to move through time, but the focus isn’t on the mechanisms (science fiction style), nor on characters living in a different…

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Time Travel Novels I Wish I’d Written

In this post, I’m going to rate several time travel novels, using my own I-Wish-I’d-Written-It test. Time travel novels go in two directions. Either the plot is a thriller-style story and takes a scientific approach to time’s paradoxes, or it immerses the reader as a tourist in a past era. Most often, time travel books have a romance. I’m not fascinated by time machines or historical paradoxes, so my stories go the romance and adventure…

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Starting a New Book — Why Did I Do It?

Why Did I Do It? Starting a new novel was a accident. Why did I begin to haul another book out of midair almost the minute I’d sent this one to be published? There was a whiteboard in my brain, erased and swoops like the water color clouds making upside down commas on the sky today. I was empty of story, the characters are gone to their own lives and readers minds. No longer my…

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Why I Want to Write About Jane Austen

Who was Jane Austen? I want to write about Jane Austen to plumb the depths of the enigma. The famous author was full of contradictions. Supposedly, she was quiet and obedient, a devout lady of her time, but she longed for the adventure her brothers enjoyed. She was a sarcastic cynic about human relationships who penned romantic comedies that still make our hearts throb. Jane was forbidden as a woman to publish under her own…

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Have a Summer of Magical Realism Fiction

The Appeal of Magic & Reading Recommendations The appeal of magical realism fiction — the extraordinary appearing within the everyday — let us escape the ordinary, feel powerful, and believe in dimensions beyond what we can see. Real life has its magical moments, but plunging into a magical novel can sustain heightened feelings. Reading magical realism fiction can allow you to feel love, do something brave, or be wildly generous. Be bigger than your ordinary…

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Which authors would you erase from history?

As I work on another time travel story, I find myself thinking deeply about what it would mean for the present to change the past. This is the kind of thing I ponder in my best thinking places — where running water or wind is involved. That’s why I dictate more and more poetry and prose on my phone. I think well in the shower, washing dishes, or walking my dog. Today I found myself…

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Writing Tip — How to Write Good Love Scenes

Writing Love Scenes Some of the most challenging writing is creating compelling love scenes. Originality and emotion are the keys to selling a love scene. Readers will instantly be put off by predictability and cliches. What position does the love story occupy in the overall story arc? In a romance, the love story is the big story. In other genres — women’s fiction, mystery, thriller — it may be a sub-plot. They’d be handled differently…

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Writing Tip: Is It Romance or Women’s Fiction?

Is It Romance or Women’s Fiction? The overlap between romance and women’s fiction is a juicy territory. It’s where characters grow deeper, learn more about why love is important, and develop into better human beings. The story may show how they plunge off a looming cliff of disaster but grow wings as they fall. In the overlap between romance and women’s fiction, a story involves the main character’s growth as a person.

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