Blog

Earning the Proposal

Earning the Proposal Romance writers have it easy in one specific way. The proposal is allowed to land. It can be the spine of the book. Everyone bought the book for it. The whole genre is a delivery mechanism for the moment one person asks another person a question and gets the …

When the Bullets Are Real

Here’s a problem every writer in deep first person eventually runs into. Your narrator gets ambushed. Or jumped. Or shot at. Suddenly the camera is locked inside a person who can’t pull back, can’t pan, can’t see around the corner — and who, if we’re being honest, can barely see …

The Quiet Apocalypse

Welcome to “An Author’s Voice” where I’ll discuss the craft behind writing and illustrate the points with my own work or discuss other well known examples. Episode Three : The Quiet Apocalypse This post accompanies Episode 3 of An Author’s Voice. If you haven’t listened yet, the …

The 14-Chapter Silence: Writing Trauma Without Putting It on the Page

Content Warning: This post discusses the craft of writing sexual assault aftermath in fiction. Here is a scene I chose not to write. It would have been the scene where everything that shapes Elara’s subsequent behavior in Technomancer actually happened — the event that explains h…

A Whole New Universe

I’m excited to announce a new series I’ve started working on called The Integration Era. This will be a Sci-Fi LitRPG series set in the far future. I’ll be posting short stories that form the background of this universe here for subscribers. Sign-up today to gain access to these …

Six Voices, Zero Tags: Why Character Voice is Constraints, Not Personality

There’s a test I run on every POV chapter in Technomancer: strip the chapter heading and ask whether the reader can still tell who’s talking. If the answer is no — if the voice could belong to any of the six point-of-view characters — the chapter isn’t ready. Not because the pros…

The Dirty Secret of First Person

Welcome to “An Author’s Voice” where I’ll discuss the craft behind writing and illustrate the points with my own work or discuss other well known examples. Episode Two : The Dirty Secret of First Person: Your Narrator Is Lying You know that feeling — three chapters into a novel, …

Both Ages at Once: Writing a Narrator Who Is Simultaneously 65 and 15

There are two ways to fail this particular craft problem, and they both destroy reader trust in different directions. Paul Taylor in Another Past is sixty-five years old — a physicist who died in a lab explosion and woke up fourteen years old in 1979. He has the full memory and e…

Writing update – March 2026

I’ve been busy writing, editing, and working on my marketing via social media lately. Here’s a brief update on what’s been happening in my world of writing. Technomancer Book 2 Beta reading has begun on Technomancer: The Awakened Mage. Advanced Reader Copies (ARC) should be sent …

The Perception Gap

Voices by Speechify Welcome to “An Author’s Voice” where I’ll discuss the craft behind writing and illustrate the points with my own work or discuss other well known examples. Episode One : The Perception Filter Technomancer is a multiple POV novel blending science fiction and fa…

Filter Words

I’ve been re-editing my work and realize my prevalence for filter language making my narrative stodgy. Here’s how I’ve been cleaning up my writing: WHAT ARE FILTER WORDS? Filter words are verbs or phrases that insert the narrator between the reader and the character’s direct expe…

Elara’s Journey: A Techno-Fantasy Adventure – pt5

“Okay,” he said. “We’re going out to the street and to the left. The subway is only a half block away. Hold on to my hand so we don’t get separated.” She nodded and took his hand. “I’m Elara,” she said softly as he stepped off. Finn stopped. He looked at her and smiled. “I’m Finn…