Introducing... As a fourth-generation author, Daniel Blackaby knows a thing or two about legacy. His grandfather wrote the impactful book “Experiencing God.” Every Christmas break, Daniel re-reads the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Legacy and cultural impact are always on...
Introducing... Fantasy has the power to change someone. When C.S. Lewis read Phantastes by George MacDonald, he said it “baptized his imagination.” For Emily Golus, Vindor helped her with her anxiety. Now, the mother of two has three books set in the land of Vindor,...
When her mother retired and started a raspberry farm, Donna Thornton found her hundred-acre wood. Starting with a baby donkey named Druplet, Donna wrote a picture book as a gift for her mother. This led to a publishing contract, another picture book, and another.
The Write2Ignite Podcast: Ep. 9: Anna Raats Introducing... Since 2009, Anna Raats has worked for Ambassador International. From designing the interiors of books, to becoming the Chief Operating Officer of the publishing company, Anna knows a thing or two about...
Introducing... When Cindy Lynn Sawyer wrote The Wonder of Under, she stopped short of hiring an illustrator. After all, the cost of hiring someone to illustrate your picture book is the most expensive part of self-publishing a picture book. So you can imagine her...
Introducing... Jarm Del Boccio firmly believes in telling children stories that deal with trials and hardship. But never brutality. In her Middle Grade novel “The Heart Changer” she tells a story based on the Biblical account in 2nd Kings 5 of Naaman the Leper....
Introducing... When Brenda Covert took one of our Master Classes taught by Laura Sassi, she immediately had the idea for Meanwhile, Back at the Manger . A few years later, she finally has a picture book to call her own. A fun re-telling of the birth of Jesus,...
It’s an honest question. Obviously, if you are writing first person POV, then this does not apply to you. Of course your narrator should be a character. Otherwise, it ain’t first person! But what about third person? Should your narrator have a distinct personality?...
There are two kinds of children's books: the kind that grownups want children to read and the kind that children want to read. As adults, we may be tempted to write the first type of book. The kind that gets Newberry and Caldecott medals. The kind that ends up on...
In my multimedia journalism class, our professor talked about “writing for the ear.” If you’re unfamiliar with the term, writing for the ear is when you write something that is meant to be spoken or performed rather than read silently. My Shakespeare professor taught...
There is nothing more painful as a writer, than staring at the blank page, with your mind even blanker. Some people call this writer’s block, some people say writer’s block doesn’t even exist. But neither of these offers a solution. Today, I’ll offer mine: prewriting....
Last week started with the Super Bowl and ended with Valentine’s Day. This Super Bowl was the most watched one yet, and while Valentine’s Day is on a downward trajectory, it is still celebrated by more than half of Americans. This is good. As a country that can feel...
Last year I watched 52 movies, and read 48 books. But I didn’t like them all. Some movies I hated. Some books I rolled my eyes at, or finished with the thought of “Finally. Now, I can read something good!” As I finished the year reading A Christmas Carol, I was struck...
It always bugged me that depictions of Christ’s birth show the wisemen there alongside the shepherds. It just isn’t very accurate. Matthew 2 says that “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea…Magi from the east came to Jerusalem” (emphasis added). While I...
By the time you are reading this blog, I will officially be 30 years old. A lot has happened in the first three decades of my life. Some things haven’t happened as quickly as I wanted to. Others happened before I was ready. But’s that’s another blog for another time....
When did you know that your writing had become more than just a hobby? For me, it was when my mother said these words: “I think you should focus on making money with your writing.” It was after I had pitched her my idea of an AI-generated graphic novel about a recent...
I have a Spotify playlist called “In Case of Emergency, Hit Play.” These aren’t Christian songs for when my heart is in anguish. That’s a different playlist. No, this kind of emergency is strictly a writer’s problem. Whether it is writer’s block, or just a tight...
I’ve got about a dozen unfinished stories. When I look back to see why I gave up on the story (sometimes mid-sentence), I discovered most of them died out around chapter three. I was shocked. What was so hard about chapter three? Why would I give up so easily? As I...
It’s the final installment! If you have ever researched rules in storytelling, you may have come across the famous Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling. This came from a 2011 tweet from a Pixar employee who realized there were 22 written (and unwritten) rules they...
If you have ever researched rules in storytelling, you may have come across the famous Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling. This came from a 2011 tweet from a Pixar employee who realized there were 22 written (and unwritten) rules they implemented on every story....
If you have ever researched rules in storytelling, you may have come across the famous Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling. This came from a 2011 tweet from a Pixar employee who realized there were 22 written (and unwritten) rules they implemented on every story. While...
“The Village of Gorgenon, near Alphigaz, floated above the Hoovah as the Pinkletons swam by. As long ago as eleventy Kikes, had the Moopahs overtaken the Quillerton valley. And now, seventeen-five Kikes later, Cocoyaks were bubbling under the surface.” Before you...
Be sober-minded, be alert. Your adversary the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour. 1st Peter 5:8 CSB I walked into the kitchen, and there, tied up and in a pot, just waiting to be boiled, was my family. Yoda...
Okay, you may have been hesitant with my article What Writers Can Learn from Walt Disney. You may have seen the Peanuts comic strip in a new light with What Writers Can Learn from Charles Schulz. But Dolly Parton? Surely, Kyle, you’re taking this thing too far! But...
By now, you’ve probably seen Linus tell Charlie Brown what Christmas is all about, seen Snoopy reunite with his brother Spike, and felt empathy for poor Rerun who is probably still stuck on that bike. For many, it’s tradition to watch the Charlie Brown Christmas...
Out of the 62 animated films from the Walt Disney Company, only 8 are original ideas, and 2 of those were propaganda films made during WWII to help strengthen our relationship with South America. Everything else was based on either a book, mythology, poems, folk...
The Two Lives of Ezekiel Van Cleef is the greatest novel ever written by AI. Why? Because I helped write it. While this sounds arrogant, I think any novel that has 10% of the writing done by a human is better than any novel written 100% by AI. In fact, productivity...
Writing a novel with ChatGPT is exhausting. I should know, for I just spent the last few months doing so. But that’s for another blog post. Today, I want to talk about how people are using ChatGPT the wrong way. If you ask ChatGPT to write you a novel, it will likely...
There was a man who worked at a factory who made some stuff. Let’s be honest. If this was an opening line, you’d close the book, put it back on the shelf and ask, “How did THAT ever get published?” But what if I told you this line could be fixed by using one simple...
What do carpet beetles, Plato, and the diary of a politician from the 1600s all have in common? You can find all of them on the website Project Gutenberg for free. If you are unfamiliar with the website, buckle up—we are diving into the public domain! Read more: Use...
“What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9 HCSB).” As a writer, I find this passage extremely depressing. Not only does it rhyme like a pessimist's Dr. Seuss, but it also means no...
Story ideas are a lot like babies: no one knows where they come from. If you’re a writer, you know a story idea can hit you when you least expect it. Just as you drift off to sleep, or reach for the shampoo in the shower, or even while someone is talking to you at a...