Sarah Spradlin

Haha… yes, the rug. 😛 The description was definitely overboard for a great part of the book. But oh boy was it rich! 😛

Hey, I’m glad it was helpful @Rolena-Hatfield! 🙂

As for the mentor question, I’ve actually not studied that much… I’ll get back to you if I come up with any earthshaking conclusions. 😉

Hey, I’m glad it was helpful @Rolena-Hatfield! 🙂

I love the Scarlet Pimpernel books too, @sarah-h! And I actually thought the romance was pretty well done, compared to a lot of other books.
I’ve also read Within the Palace Gates, and I did enjoy it— but I have a little bit of a personal problem with authors taking a Biblical story and filling it in with their imagination. I’m sure it’s not…[Read more]

Oh yes, all the time. 😉

What? 😛

Pearl Maiden by H. Rider Haggard. The Eagle of the Ninth, The Silver Branch, and The Lantern Bearers, all by Rosemary Sutcliff. Those last three are one hundred percent fantastic.

Flame of Resistance by Tracy Groot

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, Hostage Lands by Douglas Bond, The Red Keep by Allen French, Rolf and the Viking Bow by Allen French, Men of Iron by Howard Pyle, The Black Arrow by Robert L. Stevenson, Scottish Chiefs, by Jane Porter, Beyond Sing the Woods by Trygve Gulbranssen, The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas, The Edge on the Sword by…[Read more]

As soon as I come up with a new character, I get this mental image in my mind. It is not really a photograph, but it is a very rough painting, blurry, more of an outline. It is hard to explain. There is also a sort of emotion that I feel in each character. I can tell if that feeling is significantly different from the one I sense for another…

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Yes, that sounds far more pleasant.

Talk to them. If your characters aren’t real enough to hold a conversation with, they won’t be real to the readers. So ask them questions— ask them how they feel about their life, how they feel about what you make them go through. Ask them what they would change about your story— ask them what they’re afraid of, and why they are afraid. Ask…[Read more]

Don’t worry, @rolena-hatfield, our name gets misspelled and mispronounced just like that ALL THE TIME. 😛 It is a little bit of an odd name. 😉

Yes, I’m loving this topic too. I can’t believe I didn’t introduce this discussion earlier!

As for the Bible question, there are many different ways you could do that correctly. Just base the scene off…[Read more]

Well then I forgive you. 😉 😛

And yes @Daeus, Gandalf does have some absolutely fantastic quotes. And I totally know what you mean about Edmond— and that line ‘wait and hope’… oh man, just thinking about it makes me tear up and get shivers. 😛 It was the perfect way to end the story.

@Daeus, yes! Gandalf has so many great quotes. My favorite is probably “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.” 🙂

@writefury: Great thoughts! Honestly, I forget to pray. A lot. And that’s not how it should be. But a lot of times, that’s the way people are; they need help, and suddenly they remember that…[Read more]

Absolutely @writefury! And the point is not so much ‘put as much Christian behavior as you can’ as it is ‘write your story inside out with Christianity at the center, and the Christian behavior will follow.’ It will flow naturally and realistically and characteristically into the story if it is the heart of the story.

I think it was @reaganramm…[Read more]

Excellent thoughts, @Daeus! And yes @gretald, what you said was completely true. @Daeus covered that a little in his reply— Christianity, and Christian themes and messages, shouldn’t just be slipped or fitted in and hoped to be gotten away with. You shouldn’t say ‘Oh boy I have this really cool story! Oh… yeah, I’d better put some element of…[Read more]