Books & Other Projects
Nonfiction
Novel structure is often broken down to short, simple pieces: three acts, five turning points, etc. But what about the gaps between turning points? What makes one turning point different from another?
Enter the Monster Novel Structure Workbook, with 21 distinct beats to guide you through your novel. More than just the the inflexible Hero’s Journey, the Monster Workbook takes you through the most popular character arc—a positive one with a (mostly) positive ending—to maximize your book’s emotional satisfaction. With the aid of step-by-step explanations, examples, and analysis, you’ll understand how and why the structure works. And also how it can be broken and still work.
The book is enhanced with downloads, including printable and editable PDFs, a video walk-through, and a NaNoWriMo calendar for 2018. You can opt to purchase the book alone, the downloads alone, or a bundle with download link.
The Monster Guide to Writing Groups will explore everything to do with finding, joining, running, and starting a writing group. Grounded in years of experience working with multiple groups, this guide will help writers find their community.
Fiction
Icon by Tammy Chew
Unchurched
Atheist teen Janine Harper is caught off-guard when her father Reg’s midlife crisis leads him to an evangelical church. The church’s Youth Group places heavy emphasis on sexual “purity”, and Janine’s dad becomes an organizer for a purity ball (a formal dance where daughters pledge their virginity to their fathers’ safekeeping). The ball conflicts with Janine’s secular and feminist values, and her plan to attend a prestigious journalism workshop on the same date. Caught between a truth that will ruin her relationship with her father, and a lie that will wreck Janine’s faith in herself, Janine must make a damning choice.
Unchurched is a 77,000 word YA contemporary comparable to Heretics Anonymous and No Parking At the End Times. WIP.
In Her Own Skin
Guided by a memory of her mother walking into the ocean, never to return, Natalie seeks out family she never knew existed in Nova Scotia.
IHOS won second place in the 2017 Rosemary Award from YARWA and was selected for Author Mentor Match.
76,000 word YA Contemporary Fantasy with a f/f subplot. Complete.
Icon by Pinpoint.World
Masque
Rhina’s family took shelter in the Elysium Outpost when it looked like climate change and a deadly Plague would wipe out humanity. Generations later, seventeen-year-old Rhina has developed a computer simulation of a genetically modified bacteria that could save her chronically sick sister’s life. When Rhina is chosen to interview for an elite job, her prospects look bright. But she’s haunted by massive bird skulls looming at her from the shadows, and where she sees the skulls, people get sick.
With Plague.
Suspected of re-engineering the Plague bacteria, Rhina must figure out where the skulls are coming from and how they’re spreading a disease that was sealed out of the Outpost 150 years ago. When a boy wearing the skull mask abducts her into the maintenance tunnels, he blows apart Rhina’s conception of the dead exterior world. Humanity survived the Plague. They want revenge on the Outpost for abandoning them. And Rhina is the only one who knows the truth: they’re already inside.
YA science fiction, WIP.
If You Give a Girl a Love Spell
…she’s going to mess it up.
Sixteen-year-old Gennaea has been in love with a shepherd boy since she was a child, but he has no interest in a wannabe hedgewitch’s daughter. When her mom gives her a love potion to change that, Gennaea rolls her eyes. Her mom’s spells never work. Obviously there’s no such thing as magic. But a passing witch—a real witch—gives Gennaea the missing ingredient to make the spell potent. With no reason to trust the woman, Gennaea dumps the activated potion into the river that provides water to the whole village. Overnight the shepherd falls hard for Gennaea, a dream come true—and her neighbors become infatuated with the wrong people, unleashing havoc in town.
YA fantasy, WIP.
Interested in these books? Let me know!
Published Online
DIY MFA Column
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