History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Titling a Story

| February 8, 2021

Last week, I talked about starting with a title and writing a story to fit it. This week, I’m looking at something like the opposite: when you’ve got a story, with no ideas for a good title. The first thing to think about when you’re trying to title a story you’ve written is whether it’s […]

Writing to a Title

| February 1, 2021

Many authors find that coming up with a title is considerably harder than writing the story (or book, or poem) that needs the title. However, some authors start with a title and write their story to fit that title. But first, you need a title. The good news is that there are random title generators […]

How Do You Use Your Planner Book?

| January 25, 2021

Some recent house cleaning unearthed a couple of my old planner books, which of course led to me flipping through them and seeing how my planner book use has changed over the years. In 2017, I made detailed lists at the beginning of the week that listed what I planned to get done that week, […]

Poetry Form: Rimas Dissolutas

| January 18, 2021

There’s something of a perception that French forms of poetry are among some of the more difficult forms. However, if you’d like to dip your to into the world of French poetry, the rimas dissolutas form is one that I’ve found a little easier than others. (Weirdly, the name “rimas dissolutas” appears to be Portuguese, […]

Idea Tracking for Authors

| January 11, 2021

If you’re like me, you may often have more ideas than you know what to do with, and not enough time to implement them. But equally important to time for implementation is a method of tracking those ideas that works for you. I keep my ideas in a lot of places: I’ve got a tag […]

Poetry Forms: Magnetic Poetry

| December 21, 2020

Magnetic Poetry certainly isn’t a standard form of poetry, but it’s a fun way to play at writing poetry with possibly very cool results. I’ve had a variety of magnetic poetry sets over the years, but I can’t stick them to my fridge right now, for fear that my cats will remove and literally consume […]

Self Publishing and Covers

| December 14, 2020

When it comes to self-published books, cover art can have a huge impact on your sales. Even though we say “don’t judge a book by its cover,” the truth of the matter is that for many readers looking for a new book, covers are what draws them to a book by an author they’ve never […]

Reading Fiction for Success?

| December 7, 2020

Many people in the business world talk about the importance of reading, but they are often focused on reading non-fiction. However, in this article from the Harvard Business Review, the case is made for reading fiction as a way to improve one’s business success too!

Short Stories or Novels: Which Should You Tackle First?

| November 30, 2020

If you’re sliding into the end of November with a brand new novel draft in hand after NaNoWriMo, congratulations! If you didn’t quite reach the end of your novel, that’s okay too! What’s critical in either cases is that you finish. And then? You revise. If you’re new to writing, you may find a lot […]

Marketing in 2020

| November 23, 2020

A lot of authors went into 2020 with lots of excitement and hopeful feelings about it being a good year. And while things may have gone well for some, the majority of us may be looking at the year as a dark spot in an otherwise promising career trajectory. But that doesn’t mean you have […]