Blog - Page 21 of 78 - Ruth Madison

Friday Excerpt: Being the Best Ex

I’m back to doing the Romantic Friday Writers challenges! This one is themed “Being the Best Ex.” There’s so many things that could mean. I decided to do mine from my novel Breath(e), showing the great relationship that Elizabeth and Stewart maintain after they are no longer dating. Word Count: 232 *** Elizabeth sighed. “Yeah,” she said. Having a real conversation with Susan just wasn’t possible; she was too good at deflection. Why did Elizabeth even feel the need to connect with her mother? Couldn’t she just leave it be? After all, who had a mother that actually understood? It wasn’t even normal for your mother to know you fully. In her room with the door closed she called Stewart on her cell phone. “Remind me that...

Monday Review: Stranger in Town

Stranger in Town by Brenda Novak Review… Summary: A woman with an abusive ex-husband has never experienced real love. The man she falls for is the one that she was responsible for paralyzing. Along with that, a mean guy wants to take the coaching job away from the hero and is going to illegal lengths to accomplish it. The Good: A very proficient, standard romance novel. There’s plenty of plot going on here. The premise is really strong and I definitely felt tense about how things were going to work out. New obstacles were introduced regularly and I was rooting for them to overcome. The story moves well and even the child characters are not annoying or too precious. I really appreciate that there was no “cure plotline.” Matt was not going...

Friday Excerpt: Characters in Conflict

My Friday excerpts started out when I joined Romantic Friday Writers and was given a theme to write about each week. Considering that it led to the beginnings of the story that is now becoming my novel, (Be)Longing, I think it was very valuable! As I continue to work on that book, in the meantime I thought I’d get back to doing some exercises in order to spark future story ideas. Today’s is from http://www.writingforward.com/category/writing_exercises/writing-exercises The Exercise: Sketch two characters who are in conflict with each other. Do not identify a protagonist or antagonist, just create two characters. Both characters should have the potential to be good or evil. Start with physical descriptions, then get inside the characters’ heads to...