Many new authors get nervous about showing their work to others for fear of their stories being stolen.

Will someone in my writing group steal my idea and publish before me? What about my editor? Is a publishing house safer than a freelancer?

It all comes down to knowledge about how copyright works. With knowledge comes peace of mind.

​The good news is that your story is safer than you might think. But there are some legal points to keep in mind.
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​The lowly comma might be one of the most frequently used (and misused) pieces of punctuation in the English language. It has so many uses that it can get confusing trying to keep straight how to use it and how not to.

One of the ways people often get into trouble with comma usage is in joining sentences. Varying your sentence length and complexity is a great way to control the pacing and flow of your writing.
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Profanity, cussing, cursing, swearing, obscenity—whatever word you use to describe it, adult language has become prevalent in our daily lives, in everything from television to social media. Some people seem to drop the f-bomb every other word, while others are horrified by even the mildest terms.

​When we write, we try to speak to and reflect the culture of our readers, and there’s no denying that such language is a part of that culture. So, how do we decide what’s appropriate to include in our writing?
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Fiction writing takes an incredible amount of creativity, for everything from world building in sci-fi to getting that heart-pounding chase scene just right in action-adventure. But the success of any story hinges on the characters.

They have to be believable and embody the role perfectly for readers to suspend disbelief and lose themselves in the story. And part of building the perfect character for a role is choosing the right name.

You can probably find chapters,  if not whole books, on naming your characters, but in the end it’s a personal decision for each author.

​Here are a few tips to consider, though, when naming the people who populate your stories.
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