Today’s guest post follows Crystal Naldi through five major revisions she made while writing A Man’s Fight, a dark underground romance. I especially loved the addition of Patrick’s painted nails. Curious what I’m talking about? Read on to discover how that small detail, along with four other key changes, helped shape the story. Along the way, you’ll pick up novel revision tips you can apply to your own manuscript.
By Crystal Naldi
When I first imagined A Man’s Fight, I knew three things: I wanted underground fighting, dangerous attraction, and a main character who was trying to take back power after feeling powerless. Everything else took a few rounds in the cage.
The earliest version of the story was rawer and a lot messier. It had the bones of the book I eventually published, but not the heart yet, leaning more toward bare-knuckle chaos than emotional consequence. The fights and the heat were there. The bruises were definitely there.
But during revisions, I realized Patrick Boss’s story could not just be about what happened to his body in the ring. It also had to capture what happened to his identity, pride, desire, and sense of self.
Here are five of the biggest changes I made while revising A Man’s Fight.
Change #1: I Cut Back the “Fight, Heat, Repeat” Structure
In the earliest version, the story had a much more episodic setup. Patrick would enter the underground, face different fighters, and each fight was going to lead into a much more sensual encounter.
At the time, that sounded fun, dramatic, and dangerous. Very “what terrible decision will this man make next?”
But the more I worked on the book, the more I realized that structure was sending the story in the wrong direction. Instead of building Patrick’s emotional journey, it risked turning the book into a parade of fights and hookups. That can work for some stories, but this one needed something sharper and more mature.
Patrick is not just chasing danger. I also wanted to show him trying to understand who he becomes when pushed past fear. Angry, wounded, and curious about his own strength, he’s drawn to desire in ways that scare him.
So I scaled back the original structure and made the intimacy more compelling. The book became less about “how much can happen?” and more about “what does this cost him?”
Change #2: I Tied the Romantic Lead More Deeply to the Underground
Originally, the romantic lead was going to discover Patrick’s involvement from the outside. He would see him leaving the underground and realize Patrick had been keeping a secret.
That version worked on a basic plot level, but it lacked bite.
The better version came when I tied the romantic lead more directly into the danger, secrecy, and temptation of the underground itself. Suddenly, the romance was happening inside the main plot rather than adjacent to it. Every look, confrontation, and charged moment had more impact because the attraction was tangled up with the same world Patrick was struggling to survive.
Instead of one character just reacting to Patrick’s secret, the romance became part of the secret, making the relationship feel more dangerous and intimate.
That reminded me how romance shouldn’t feel pasted onto the story. In a strong romance, the love interest should complicate the hero’s deepest problem and make the plot worse in the best possible way.
Change #3: The Underground Became a Whole World, Not Just a Place to Fight
At first, the underground was much simpler. I pictured something closer to a gritty open-floor fight club: shirtless guys, bare knuckles, blood, sweat, and a crowd hungry for violence.
It had atmosphere, but it did not have mythology yet. During revisions, I started asking myself what would make this underground feel unforgettable. Why would people come here? Why would fighters risk themselves here? What would make Patrick feel like he had stepped into a place with its own rules, symbols, and rituals?
That is when the world became more theatrical. The fights moved away from a plain open-floor setup and became more structured, stylized, and dangerous. Masks and fighter identities became important, and the space itself evolved into a stage where men were not just fighting, but performing versions of themselves.
That revision changed the tone of the entire book, turning the underground into a place where Patrick could be watched, judged, desired, hurt, and transformed. I used the setting to seduce the characters and dare them to become someone they’re not sure they are ready to be.
Change #4: I Added a Stronger Power Structure
In the earliest version, I did not really have one central figure controlling the underground. The story had fighters, spectators, and danger, but it lacked a strong sense of who was benefiting from all that chaos.
Once I started building a clearer power structure behind the underground, the book gained more tension. No longer random events, the fights were part of a system where someone had control. Someone was watching and understood how to turn violence, secrecy, and spectacle into power.
Patrick was not just walking into a dangerous room anymore; he was walking into someone else’s game.
It also gave Patrick something bigger to push against. Rather than just fighting other men, he was challenging the world they were all trapped inside.
Change #5: I Gave Smaller Details More Meaning
Some revisions are huge structural changes while others are tiny details that suddenly reveal the character better than a whole paragraph of explanation.
For Patrick, one of those details became his nails.
When I first thought of the story, I did not imagine him painting his nails in pride colors. That came later, but once it appeared, it felt like it had always belonged there.
The nails gave Patrick a visual way to carry defiance on his body. They were vulnerable and bold at the same time. In a world built around fists, blood, and masculine performance, painted nails became a sign of rebellion.
That is the kind of detail I love: something small enough to miss at first glance, but strong enough to tell you who a character is.
Another smaller-but-important revision involved moving a romantic complication from another project into this one. I will keep that vague to avoid spoilers, but it was one of those writer moments where a subplot raises its hand from the wrong story and says, “Actually, I belong over there.”
That subplot raised the emotional stakes around Patrick’s choices, making the romance messier and the longing more complicated. It gave the story another layer of “this would be easier if everyone wanted simple things, but of course they don’t.”
Want to Read the Rest of the Book?
The version of A Man’s Fight I first imagined was rougher, sexier, and much more straightforward. The version I published became something stronger: a dark enemies-to-lovers M/M romance about violence, desire, identity, pride, and the dangerous thrill of being seen by the exact person who could ruin you.
A Man’s Fight is a novella set in an underground fighting world of masks, blood, pride, and dangerous attraction. Patrick Boss is a closeted, sensitive gay man who enters the underground searching for power after feeling powerless. What he finds is a world built on violence, secrets, and desire — and a man who makes the fight feel personal in ways Patrick is not ready for.
The book is available now in ebook, paperback, hardcover, and audiobook formats.
Readers can learn more about A Man’s Fight, watch the trailer and short film, and find purchase links here:
Crystal Naldi writes gritty M/M romance with blood, bruises, big feelings, and men who probably need therapy before they start kissing each other — but where would the fun be in that?
She is the author of A Man’s Fight and the creator of the You Fight Like a Girl series, a dark romance/fighting saga about survival, identity, and love in violent worlds. Her work often blends cinematic action, emotional intensity, queer romance, and a little bit of chaos.
Hi there! I’m Stacy Juba, an author, freelance editor, and the founder of Shortcuts for Writers. I’d love to connect. If you’re a writer, here are a few ways we can work together:
As artificial intelligence tools become more common in the writing world, the debate around AI vs human writing is heating up. Many authors are asking the same questions:
Can AI write a novel that feels human? Will AI replace writers?
My personal answer is that if we keep reminding readers and publishers what makes human-authored books special, then no, it won’t replace us. Readers will always want meaningful stories, and most won’t be excited about paying for books written by a computer.
That means developing your storytelling craft through stronger characterization, richer world-building, thoughtful research that makes scenes come alive, and most importantly, by honing your voice and writing the stories only you can tell.
To test this in a practical way, Jeremy Esekow, co-founder of Storywise, ran a fascinating experiment: a writing competition where human authors competed against AI-generated chapters.
In this guest post, Jeremy shares what happened when AI vs human writing went head-to-head and the five lessons writers can take from the results.
By Jeremy Esekow
A few months ago, my company, Storywise, launched a writing competition that felt a little reckless—but also necessary. We pitted humans against AI. I approached this experiment from two personal perspectives.
First, as an author. I’ve sent out countless query letters over the years. Most were met with silence. Second, as an entrepreneur and employer. I’ve also sat behind the other side of that inbox, staring at hundreds of job applications I simply didn’t have the capacity to answer. I know what it feels like to wait. And I know what it feels like to be overwhelmed.
And lately, another question has been nagging at me.
AI vs Human Writing: Why We Ran This Storytelling Experiment
If AI can generate entire manuscripts in minutes, what happens when submissions to agents and publishers suddenly multiply? What happens when slush piles triple? Will it become dramatically harder for human authors to stand out? Will original voices be buried under a tidal wave of competent, machine-generated slop?
So instead of wondering, we decided to test it. This allowed us to see how AI vs human writing compared when both were given the same story premise. We created a submission page, established the contest rules, and opened the competition to writers.(including a strict no-AI-assistance policy for the authors). Then we assembled judges, secured prizes (first prize was a publishing contract), designed ads, and got banned by reddit…
The goal wasn’t to declare a winner once and for all, but to see how human storytelling compared with AI-generated writing under the same conditions.
5 Lessons From the AI vs Human Writing Experiment
Each author submitted one entirely human written chapter from a new manuscript. We then took the logline from the authors chapter, fed it into an AI writing tool, and generated an AI chapter.
Our human judges were tasked with two jobs:
For each submission, decide whether the author wrote a better chapter than the AI generated version. We gave the judges specific guidelines.
And from there, choose which were the three best written chapters submitted overall.
The results turned out to be both encouraging and a little unsettling.
We received genuinely wonderful entries. Many chapters were brave and distinctive, feeling undeniably human. In the end, the prizes went to three human authors, leaving me proud. And relieved.
But there were moments when the AI chapter held its own. When they were compelling, mimicking structure and pacing convincingly. And if AI can produce something “good enough” at scale, and submissions grow exponentially, then the challenge for human authors may become insurmountable.
After everything wrapped up, we asked our judges what they had learned. Had the experiment changed their view of AI writing? Were they more optimistic? More concerned?
Their answers were thoughtful. The results of this AI vs human writing test revealed several patterns. Here are the five biggest takeaways from the competition:
1. Human Dialogue Outperforms AI Dialogue
One of the biggest differences in AI vs human writing appeared in dialogue scenes. AI-generated dialogue often lacks human-like emotional nuance and authenticity. Readers often sensed something slightly artificial about the dialogue, and it created distance instead of genuine character interaction. The AI generated chapters consistently underperformed in scenes requiring dialogue. Whether crafting distinctive and believable messaging, original intonations, or mannerisms, a good human author seemed to deliver the goods better.
2. AI Struggles With Story Pacing
We struggled to get an LLM to write even one chapter longer than 2,000 words. And when it did succeed lengthwise, it generally told most of the story, leaving little content for the rest of the book. Pacing is another area where AI tends to struggle. The narrative often moves too quickly.
AI is great when you need to move things along, but as soon as slow burn is required, it collapses. When shocking readers with a terrifying scene, a good author will have you sweating for pages, not just a paragraph.
3. Author Voice Is What Sets Human Writing Apart
When comparing AI vs human writing, one thing the judges kept returning to was voice. Judges repeatedly gravitated toward chapters that carried a distinctive and recognizable author voice. We’ve seen this pattern before.
Many of Storywise’s customers, when setting up their taste profiles, don’t just describe genres or themes. They describe voices, such as sharp, lyrical, commanding, comforting, or intimate. They want to feel theperson behind the page. That truth became even clearer in a competition where we were comparing human writing to AI-generated prose.
AI can produce structure and coherence. It can even produce elegance. But I don’t believe it can produce a voice that feels owned and truly fresh. In several cases, the judges chose the human chapter even when it was less polished or less “publisher-ready.”
4. Editors Need a Reason to Keep Reading
The strongest predictor of a high score was surprisingly simple: did the judge want to keep reading and to know what happens next? Interestingly, authors who tried to pack too much into chapter one often scored lower. Overcrowded openings with too many characters, too many events, too much backstory left judges feeling overwhelmed rather than intrigued.
Some chapters had the opposite problem. They opened brilliantly, with tension and promise, but then wrapped things up a little too neatly by the final page. Judges found themselves enjoying the chapter without feeling compelled to turn the page. Others lingered too long in scene-setting with beautifully drawn worlds but weren’t able to pull the judge into a compelling narrative. Delivering an intriguing opening or creating an unmissable hook at the closing were great ways to leave our judges begging for more.
5. AI Is Improving Rapidly
One of the most surprising aspects of the AI vs human writing experiment was how often judges struggled to tell the difference. At times, it was genuinely difficult to tell which chapter was written by a human and which by AI. We even ran blind tests, presenting the two versions side by side without labels. In more than a few cases, judges guessed wrong. That alone was sobering.
For the anti-AI hardliner, there are clues. One telltale sign of machine-generated prose is over-describing details that don’t carry any narrative significance. Confident writers won’t describe the color and quantity of flowers stuffed into a vase in a corridor that the protagonists briefly passed through. If it’s not important to the story, a good author will know not to waste ink and reader attention on it.
And then there’s the EM-dash. AI adores it. Find me a ChatGPT response that doesn’t include an Em-dash. Sadly, authors are starting to shy away from the EM-dash so as not to have their writing labelled as AI generated.
The bottom line though is that AI is getting very good at creative writing. Not independently and not magically. Especially when it’s guided by a skilled storyteller who knows how to prompt it effectively. Good prompters know what they are doing and how to get the most out of AI assistance and editing tools.
Key Lessons From the AI vs Human Writing Contest
Looking back at the results of this AI vs human writing experiment, human authors ultimately came out ahead. It was close. And we learned five clear lessons that you, as an author, can take with you, as you continue to thrive amidst rapidly changing dynamics:
1. Human dialogue is better than AI-generated dialogue. Invest in your dialogue and give your characters distinctive voices.
2. AI doesn’t do well with pacing. It can’t do slow burn and left to its own devices, rushes through the plot. Master the art of sustaining tension. Learn to draw readers forward without resolving everything too soon and you’ll not only endure in the age of AI, you’ll thrive.
3. Judges want a distinctive authors voice, especially when they are being swamped with AI-generated ‘slop’. Focus on delivering content with the best version of your own unique style.
4. Keep your reader wanting more with a great hook. Get the reader invested in your characters right out of the blocks, or build towards a heart-stopping cliffhanger. Otherwise, you risk your readers not wanting to turn to the next chapter.
5. And finally, AI is getting very good at creative writing. It still has blind spots, struggling with originality, lived emotional complexity, and the unexpected twists that make a story powerful. But as a tool for researching, drafting, refining, and editing, it is improving quickly.
FAQs About AI Vs Human Writing
Can AI write a novel as well as a human? AI can generate structured stories, but it still struggles with emotional depth, distinctive voice, and long-form pacing. Human writers bring lived experience and storytelling instinct that machines can’t easily replicate.
Will AI replace fiction writers? Writers who develop strong voice, character development, and storytelling craft will continue to stand out.
What is the biggest difference between AI writing and human writing? The biggest difference is voice and emotional nuance. AI can mimic structure and style, but human authors bring originality, perspective, emotion, and lived experience.
About the Author
Jeremy is a self-published author, born in South Africa. He earned his master’s degree in business and PhD in philosophy from the University of Cape Town. He has worked in the high-tech sector for the past fifteen years, most recently co-founding Storywise, a software platform for publishers, agents, and authors. Prior to that, he worked in tourism, spending time in huts and hotels all over Southern Africa.
About Storywise
Storywise was founded in 2023 to address a challenge familiar to writers and publishers alike: giving promising authors a better shot at publishing successfully and providing publishers and agents with a better way to discover stories that fit the wishlist. Learn more about it here.
The Writer’s Biz Crew
Thanks, Jeremy, for that intriguing post. If this experiment shows anything, it’s that writing craft matters more than ever. Strong dialogue, pacing, and voice help human writers stand out in a world where AI can produce competent but generic prose.
I’m not a fan of using AI to write or edit your book. It can be helpful for brainstorming or light polishing, but rely on it too much and you’ll lose the very voice that makes your work special.
Where I do think AI shines is helping with the behind-the-scenes grunt work of being an author—things like drafting social media captions, coming up with newsletter ideas, planning book launches, scheduling writing time, and organizing your street team.
You’ll get 10 custom GPT assistants that will help you do all of the above and learn how to use them wisely. Check out this extensive book marketing course here.
Hi there! I’m Stacy Juba, an author, freelance editor, and the founder of Shortcuts for Writers. I’d love to connect. If you’re a writer, here are a few ways we can work together:
In this Behind the Rewrite post, Jann Everard shares her experience revising a short story for inclusion in her short fiction collection. Despite the story’s previous publications, Jann saw an opportunity to strengthen the piece further. Below, she reflects on why she chose to revisit a published story and how those edits ultimately improved the narrative.
Prior to being included in my short fiction collection Blue Runaways (Stonehewer Books, 2024), The Bus Stops Here had been published in Canadian journal The Fiddlehead and an anthology entitled Best New Writing 2015. Yet it still underwent the most line editing/revision of the twelve stories in the collection—making it crisper and more consistent with the quality and themes of the other stories.
Openness to editing a story that has been previously published can be a challenge. The published version might be fixed in the writer’s mind. Distance from the story helps to see it with fresh eyes, as does reading it within the context of the surrounding stories and carrying a mental checklist of revision tactics from one story to another.
Edits included:
✅Using one word instead of two, e.g., thought about became considered.
✅Deleting words and phrases to stay on point. The character is focused on her hygiene after a long bus ride. The references to eating in fast food joints distracted from that and could be deleted.
✅Letting the reader make their own connections. Spelling out what a shower does (e.g., “… to wash away the mustiness”) wasn’t necessary. Nor was it necessary to say the character is backpacking, given her actions. Delete, delete, delete.
✅Taking advantage of a previously missed opportunity to hint at the character’s backstory and why she cares so little about her nighttime routine. Having “anxious thoughts” was vague, while being ambivalent about taking a birth control pill is more specific.
Original
It took only five minutes to unroll and inflate my sleeping pad, pull my sleeping bag from its compression sack and fold my fleece into a makeshift pillow. I thought about going back to the lodge to brush my teeth, but really, what did it matter? I wouldn’t be kissing anyone tonight. Or anytime soon, for that matter.
I’d been denying this fact for days. On the bus, I’d slept, and mechanically followed the others off the bus into rest stops with grimy bathrooms and greasy fast food joints. I’d sat near my fellow travellers, parroting their actions as I put food in my mouth, chewed and swallowed. I’d tied my greasy hair back into an unflattering ponytail, applied my deodorant stick layer over layer—no shower in between to wash away the mustiness.
Now, lying flat on my back in the dark, specks of mould on the tepee’s white canvas like a reverse palette of the night sky above me, reality set in. I had no one to soothe away my anxious thoughts. I was on this backpacking trip alone.
Final Version
It took only five minutes to unroll and inflate my sleeping pad, pull my sleeping bag from its compression sack and fold my fleece into a makeshift pillow. I considered going back to the lodge to brush my teeth. On the bus, I’d mechanically followed the others into rest stops with grimy bathrooms. Chipped porcelain and discoloured mirrors. Beside my fellow travellers, I’d tied my greasy hair back into an unflattering ponytail, applied my deodorant stick layer over layer instead of showering. At the top of my backpack was a zippered bag holding individually-wrapped face wipes, travel-sized bottles of lotion, a blister pack that held my pills. It didn’t seem to matter anymore if I took one at the usual time or not.
Now, lying flat on my back in the dark, specks of mould on the tepee’s white canvas like a reverse palette of the night sky above me, reality set in. No one but me would notice whether my face was washed or my rough elbows softened with lotion. No one else would share my tube of toothpaste. I was alone.
About Blue Runaways
Some of the women in Blue Runaways are grieving. Some are looking for a second chance. All are at a turning point. From Iceland to Bali, from Canada’s cities to its wild and expansive backcountry, the characters in this collection face the most human of fears: that dear ones die, love is a risk, and no promise is certain.
As diverse in situation as it is controlled in theme, this collection serves as a multifaceted exploration of loss, love, and what it takes to move on. With a keen eye for landscape and an uncanny knack for inhabiting hearts and minds, Everard ventures into her character’s darkest days. By confronting the sorrow of being alive, Blue Runaways reveals the joy of knowing we are not alone.
Jann Everard is an award-winning writer whose stories have been published in Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand in journals including: The Malahat Review, The Fiddlehead, The New Quarterly, Prairie Fire, Grain, The Humber Literary Review, EVENT Magazine, Room Magazine, and The Dalhousie Review. Born in Halifax, Jann settled in Toronto, where she worked in health administration and raised two sons. A life-long traveller and outdoorswoman, she now makes her home on Vancouver Island — hiking, kayaking, writing, and being inspired by nature.
Hi there! I’m Stacy Juba, an author, freelance editor, and the founder of Shortcuts for Writers. I’d love to connect. If you’re a writer, here are a few ways we can work together:
Writers are often told to “show, don’t tell,” but what does that really mean? When Alina Adams revised a pivotal scene in her upcoming novel Go On Pretending, you can see firsthand how turning exposition into action and dialogue made the emotions more powerful, the stakes higher, and the characters more vivid. Thanks to an insightful editorial suggestion, what was once an internal monologue transformed into a dynamic exchange that pulled readers deeper into the world of her characters. Below, Alina shares a look at that transformation and why “show, don’t tell” is more than just a writing cliché.
My 15th traditionally published novel, Go On Pretending, comes out on May, 1, 2025. (It is partially set in the Soviet Union. Yes, the choice of date is deliberate.) You would think that, after 15 traditionally published novels (and four books of nonfiction), I would know what I was doing. Granted, I sometimes do know what I am doing. But, then again, I don’t always know what I am doing.
For instance, below is a scene as it originally appeared in the first draft of Go On Pretending. (Obviously, the first draft is not actually the first draft. It is the 112th draft, which I have gone over obsessively, changing a word here, deleting a sentence there, moving around paragraphs, and then deciding none of it works and I should start all over again. But you know what I mean.)
Background: The year is 1957. Rose Janowitz is a radio soap-opera writer romantically involved with her show’s African-American leading man, Jonas Cain. It was one thing to hide his identity on the radio. But now that the program is about to make the big move to television, the pair of them have a problem. A big problem….
Wearing an engagement ring should have made Rose feel safer. She and Jonas were a legitimate couple now. Interracial marriage was legitimately legal in New York state. Instead, it made her feel like more of a target. Whenever they stepped out together, Rose wriggled with an itch between her shoulder-blades which suggested she was being watched. Jonas assured it was her imagination. This was New York City. Nobody cared about anybody else’s business. They were all too busy concentrating on their own lives to hone in on whether Rose wore an engagement ring or wonder if the colored man next to her was the lucky groom-to-be. Yet Rose still felt as if a spotlight targeted her hand wherever she went. Sure, some people smiled at her. Most, like Jonas said, ignored her. But how did Rose know what they were really thinking?
Rose couldn’t claim that her paranoia started with Emmet Till, the fourteen year old Negro boy lynched in Mississippi for flirting or smiling or whistling or saying hello – no one was sure, but did it really matter? – to a white woman. He was from Chicago, another Northern city like New York where nobody cared about anyone else’s business, so Emmet didn’t expect Mississippi to be different. The men acquitted of his murder beat Emmet, then shot him, then dropped his body off a bridge into the river where he was eventually found. They used cotton- seeds to soak up the blood left behind. He was fourteen. A child. A child like Jonas had once been. A child like she and Jonas might one day have.
The murder of Emmet Till didn’t kick off Rose’s paranoia. But it inflamed it. Rose didn’t want Jonas to reassure her that no one cared. She wanted him to reassure her that things were getting better. What about Brown v. The Board of Education, integrating public schools? What about Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus boycott? What about the Reverend Martin Luther King and the meeting in Atlanta to coordinate non-violent protests across the Southern states?
But all Jonas would say was, “Forty acres and a mule. We’ve heard promises before.”
His cynicism infuriated her. But not as much as her own helplessness.
The world was burning, children were dying, and Rose was… writing a play?
Once upon a time, she’d marched off to war in order to right the world’s wrongs. She’d failed. But at least she’d tried.
Now she was sitting at home, writing, worrying about looks she might engender in the streets, telling herself that words, if she could find the right ones, might make a difference. It wasn’t enough. Merely trying wouldn’t be enough this time either.
This time, Rose would need to succeed.
There was no other option. Not if she and Jonas were to remain together.
They would succeed.
Or they would die trying.
***
When History Through Fiction publisher Colin Mustful read the above, his note to me was: Perhaps this should be a scene? Rose could read it in the paper and it could lead to a discussion about these issues and fears??
Here is how the rewrite will appear in the final version:
Wearing an engagement ring should have made Rose feel safer. She and Jonas were a legitimate couple now. Interracial marriage was legitimately legal in New York state. Instead, it made her feel like more of a target. Whenever they stepped out together, Rose wriggled with an itch between her shoulder-blades which suggested she was being watched. Jonas assured her it was her imagination. This was New York City. Nobody cared about anybody else’s business. They were all too busy concentrating on their own lives to hone in on whether Rose wore an engagement ring or wonder if the colored man next to her was the lucky groom-to-be. Yet Rose still felt as if a spotlight targeted her hand wherever she went. Sure, some people smiled at her. Most, like Jonas said, ignored her. But how did Rose know what they were really thinking?
Rose assured Jonas she wasn’t obsessing over the issue. She swore to him she barely so much as thought about the issue. Jonas pretended to believe her. Until Rose handed him a stack of freshly typed pages for Jonas to read out loud so Rose could hear how they sounded, and a folded newspaper clipping describing the murder of Emmet Till fluttered to the ground.
Till was the fourteen-year-old Negro boy lynched in Mississippi for flirting or smiling or whistling or saying hello—no one was sure, but did it really matter?—to a white woman. He was from Chicago, another Northern city like New York where nobody cared about anyone else’s business, so Emmet didn’t expect Mississippi to be different. The men acquitted of his murder beat Emmet, then shot him, then dropped his body off a bridge into the river where he was eventually found. They used cotton seeds to soak up the blood left behind. He was fourteen. A child. A child like Jonas had once been. A child like she and Jonas might one day have.
Rose scrambled to pick up the detritus, crumpling it in her palm and making a move to pitch it towards the garbage pail. “I must have missed this when taking out the trash.”
“It’s over a year old,” Jonas observed levelly.
“So, I missed it a year ago.” She refused to meet his eyes.
“Rose…”
“Don’t. Please. Please don’t tell me again how nobody cares that we’re together.”
“What do you want me to tell you then?”
Oh, Jonas. Forever the pliant actor, waiting for her to feed him his lines. It was a fantasy, no different than the worlds they created over the radio. Rose understood the daydream of it as surely as she embraced her eagerness to take advantage of it.
“I want you to tell me that things are getting better. Brown versus The Board of Education integrating public schools. Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus boycott. Dr. King coordinating those non-violent protests in Atlanta. Tell me all of that means things are getting better.”
“Forty acres and a mule,” he reminded her. “We’ve heard promises before.”
“Why do you have to be so cynical?”
“Because I’m not the champion you are. I didn’t possess the courage to go charging into Spain, prepared to lay down my life if it meant making the world a better place.”
“What are you talking about? You fought in the European theater!”
“Not by choice. I was drafted. You volunteered.”
“That was over fifteen years ago. What have I championed lately? The world is burning.” She smoothed out the wrinkled newspaper story so they could both, once again, look upon the photograph of poor Emmet in his casket, his swollen face with its missing eyes disfigured past recognition, his grieving mother being pulled away as she sobbed. “Children are dying. And what am I doing to make the world a better place? I’m writing a goddamn play! I’m pretending that words—if I could only find the right words—that words might somehow make a difference.”
“You championed me.” Jonas slid the picture out of Rose’s hands. “You championed us.”
“I will never stop doing that,” she swore.
“Which is why,” he leaned in to kiss her, “that is the one promise I will always believe.”
***
It’s better.
It is undeniably, 100% better.
My very first published book, The Fictitious Marquis, came out from Avon in 1995. Since then, I’ve self-published some non-fiction. But I insist on only traditional publishing for my fiction.
When people ask me why, I explain it’s because I need someone to check my stupidity. With non-fiction, I know I have information people want, and they are happy to get it, even if the prose isn’t sparkling.
For fiction, I have to convey subtlety and nuance and a mood. I can’t just state what I want to say and move on. For that, I can try my literary best. But I need other people to read it and to tell me whether or not it not only makes sense, but whether it delivers what I want it to deliver.
For that I need an editor who will tell me when my work isn’t good enough. That is exactly what Colin did with the above, and, thankfully, he offered a suggestion to make it better. (You don’t know how many editors I’ve had who scribbled notes like: This scene doesn’t work. Make it work.)
Colin forced me to turn thought into action, feeling into conviction. The rewrite made the emotion stronger, it brought the characters into clearer focus, and it shone a spotlight on the specific time, something that is absolutely vital in historical fiction.
I think the rewrite is better. My publisher thinks the rewrite is better. But, of course, in the end, none of it matters. Only the readers’ opinion ultimately counts.
So I’m asking you: What do you think? Which version do you prefer?
Let us all know in the comments!
About the book
Three generations of women battle against the tides of history, from segregated 1950s America to the fall of the USSR and the rise of revolutionary Rojava.
Rose Janowitz is a pioneer in the 1950s golden age of television, as she navigates the transition from radio to TV soap operas. But beneath the glitz and glamor lies a web of secrets. Rose’s radical past and her hidden romance with Jonas Cain, the African-American leading man who made Guiding Light a hit on radio. How long will Rose be able to hide Jonas Cain’s identity-and their romantic relationship-from the public, and from Irna Phillips, the formidable doyenne who invented the soap-opera, a woman who makes-and breaks-professional careers on a whim.
In the 1980s, Rose’s daughter Emma Kagan abandons her privileged life in the USSR as the daughter of high-profile American defectors, to return to the country of her parents’ birth just as Mikhail Gorbachev announces the new openness known as glasnost. In the US, Emma navigates the hypocrisy and inherent contradictions of the political left and the right, as the collapse of the Soviet Union sends her scrambling for survival. Emma’s search for a place to fully belong finds her looking for personal freedom in the strangest of places-with unexpected and often life-threatening results.
In 2012, Libby, Emma’s daughter and Rose’s granddaughter, embarks on a bold journey to Rojava, Syria, joining the Women’s Revolution. Her search for utopia pulls Rose and Emma into the fray, where family secrets long buried are unearthed amid the anarchy of war.
New York Times bestselling author Alina Adams brings her unique perspective as a Soviet immigrant to the US who mastered English through soap operas to this multilayered tale. With a background in broadcast communications and a history of writing compelling narratives, Adams captures the essence of each era with authenticity and emotional depth. From the author of the acclaimed historical novel My Mother’s Secret, Go On Pretending offers a powerful exploration of the struggles for personal freedom and the enduring strength of family bonds.
About Alina Adams
Alina Adams is the NYT-bestselling author of soap opera tie-ins, figure skating mysteries, and romance novels. Her historical fiction includes The Nesting Dolls, My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region, and the upcoming Go on Pretending.
Read Alina’s past articles on the Shortcuts for Writers blog:
Hi there! I’m Stacy Juba, an author, freelance editor, and the founder of Shortcuts for Writers. I’d love to connect. If you’re a writer, here are a few ways we can work together:
Author Nancy Houser-Bluhm, one of my editing clients, shares about her two-year journey writing her time travel romance, The Nickel Loop. If you’ve ever felt the pressure to write faster or wondered if all those research rabbit holes were worth it, you’ll want to read this. Nancy’s story spans three eras—1898, 1938, and present day—and she shares the highs and lows of balancing historical accuracy with storytelling. From digging into old maps and slang to working with museum archivists, Nancy’s experience shows just how rewarding (and occasionally overwhelming) writing historical fiction can be. Whether you’re in the middle of your own project or just curious about the research process, you’ll find plenty of insight—and maybe a few lessons to help streamline your own work!
Well, this process was cathartic! Too much energy has gone to chastising myself for being a slow writer. It took me over two years to write my most recent novel, The Nickel Loop.
Some author friends push out two+ books a year. I see now it was a thoughtful process, and feedback is, I got historical elements correct. I adore historical fiction, so research was a delight most days, enjoying every rabbit hole I went down. TNL is a time travel romance with Nicholas, the male character coming to 1938 from 1898. Emmeline, the main female character arrives in 1938 but from current day. My storyline tasked me with three eras to consider. How would a person transported forward 40 years view 1938 compared to a woman arriving from current day?
Thorough research is key to avoiding later criticism. The 1930s was packed with momentous events; it was important to choose which aspects to incorporate while leaving looming war, the depression and dust bowl for another author to tackle. I chose to address several cultural aspects.
I kept voluminous notes and links to articles and photos. Keeping my reference information better organized would top my list of what to do differently. It was cumbersome trying to remember if a reference was in a notebook, in my phone, or on my desktop.
Reading old newspapers helped with language style and events. Nicholas needed to speak with slang from the 1890s, and checking word origins ensured a term was indeed used in the 1890s. The museum archivist from Glenwood Springs, where TNL is set, was as excited to share as I was to listen. I looked at old plot maps showing town density. Old photos helped me describe houses and kitchens of the era. Librarians went to their basements to locate books, allowing me to dive into minutia such as which roads were paved in 1938, and which cars could travel the mountain roads.
I looked at vintage magazines and era fashion books to get clothing right. Men’s clothing had zippers, but it was unseemly for women. I verified information with authors who write earlier eras into their novels. Several 20-somethings advised this boomer on what a twenty-three year old woman would miss most from 2022, as well as what may be appealing about the 1930s. We all know YouTube is great for how-to videos, but now I know it’s a handy way to experience a train ride from Denver to Glenwood Springs.
The triggers for time travel required research of old coins. A near miss was thinking Buffalo Head Nickels were around in the 1890s. I needed to know prices of meals and hotels in the 1930s as well as 1890s. The Nickel Loop has a thread that follows our food delivery systems. The 1930s were a pivotal era in our food production processes. I researched what refrigeration was like and how grocery stores worked.
Being a discovery author (aka pantser), my research paralleled my scenes. I plan to plot my next novel and it will guide research needed in advance. It’s often advised to look at similar genre blurbs before writing your own. It’s also advised to look at author’s explanations of their historical fiction. I invoked literary license while remaining true to America’s 1930s era even if it wasn’t authentic to Glenwood Springs. I acknowledged this at the beginning while at the end I listed samplings of literary license. That may not save me from some historian’s critique but so far, it’s worked.
More About Nancy Houser-Bluhm
Nancy Houser-Bluhm now hails from Michigan after living in the Colorado foothills for 25 years with her husband, various pets, and many, many trees. When she retired from a full-time career as a speech pathologist, report writing was replaced with creative projects-novels, short stories, and inspired poems. Nancy shifted reader’s thinking about the earth’s soil with her debut novel, Whispers for Terra. She enjoys being carried away by a good story while given cause to ponder some aspect of our existence.
Emmeline, a driven young woman, has withdrawn from friends and family since her adored father died suddenly. Traveling by train to visit her sister in a small Colorado town, she steps from 2022 into 1938. When she meets kind, well-educated Nicholas, she recognizes his panic and disbelief. He just arrived from 1898.
The two struggle to grasp their shattered reality, but blending into 1938 draws them close and love sparks. When a psychic offers hope for returning to their own times, will they forfeit what could be?
Nicholas is astonished by the advances 1938 offers, but Emmeline knows the 1930s hold little opportunity for her as a woman. A discovery intensifies the pull back to her own time. Can her heart exist on two timelines?
Have you ever wished for a second chance at love or wished you could go back and change that one thing? If you have, you will be unable to resist Nicholas and Emmeline’s story of love and choice.
Hi there! I’m Stacy Juba, an author, freelance editor, and the founder of Shortcuts for Writers. I’d love to connect. If you’re a writer, here are a few ways we can work together:
Could you use some tips on managing your time better as a writer? How about advice on how to express your characters’ emotions through body language?
Then I hope you’ll tune in to my interview on the Authors’ Alcove Podcast: Writers Helping Writers, where I discuss these topics and more. Host Agnes Wolfe interviewed me about my motivation for starting the Shortcuts for Writers website, and how during my career as an author and freelance developmental editor, I observed common mistakes made by writers.
Throughout the conversation, I emphasized the importance of writers learning to think like editors to save time and money on the editing process. We briefly discussed my courses, which aim to empower writers with the skills to catch mistakes on their own, producing stronger manuscripts and reducing the need for multiple rounds of professional editing.
The conversation also delved into practical writing advice, including time management tips, the Pomodoro Technique, and the significance of writing routines. We stressed the importance of quality over quantity in writing time, encouraging writers to find small pockets of time for consistent writing rather than waiting for longer sessions. I also discussed the impact of clutter, both physical and mental, on writing productivity and suggested strategies for decluttering and organizing writing spaces.
Agnes and I also touched on the importance of portraying body language effectively in writing. I explained how I created a course, the Energize Your Writing Toolkit, to help writers diversify their descriptions of body language beyond common clichés. The course provides lists of phrases for different emotions so writers can use them as starting points to enrich character interactions and avoid overused expressions.
You can listen in at the below links or watch the interview on YouTube.
Hi there! I’m Stacy Juba, an author, freelance editor, and the founder of Shortcuts for Writers. I’d love to connect. If you’re a writer, here are a few ways we can work together:
Author and book coach Meredith R. Stoddard is visiting today to share 5 essential research tips for fiction writers. I met Meredith because we both had chapters included in Launchpad: The Countdown to Writing Your Book and were interviewed on a YouTube show together. Her chapter is full of valuable advice on how to do research, so I asked her if she would share some tips for my audience. Her post is below.
What can a fantasy author tell you about researching fiction? First, that it doesn’t matter what genre you write; believability is key. For everything from historical fiction to sci-fi, keeping your readers immersed in your story depends on making them believe what you are writing. That means that even when writing about the magic system in a fantasy book, or describing a government in a dystopian world, we have to start by grounding it in something familiar to your audience. Those things that readers already know to be true are the foundation that we can use to build castles, spaceships, and fairy realms. Even a fantasy writer like me, has to ground some things in reality, or at least the semblance of reality.
#1 Put yourself in your characters’ shoes
Building a credible world for your characters to move through, and telling how your characters relate to that world means that we need to know everything from what they eat to how they sleep. Where do your characters shop? What do they wear? Which jobs do they have? What kind of laws affect their daily lives?
Fortunately, YouTube is full of videos showing people walking through places, and activities that can give you clues. You can search for “day in the life” videos by location, profession, or demographic. There are videos of markets and grocery stores, and cooking videos of national or regional dishes. All of these things can give you ideas for describing how your characters live. If your settings are real, you can use Google Street View to walk around many places in the world.
#2 Research for all five senses
You’ve probably heard that you should write for all five senses. That means you should also research for all five senses. Your readers are going to want to know what your fictional world and even your characters smell like. They’ll want to know the sounds, tastes, textures, and sights of the world you’re creating and how your characters perceive them. Pay attention to those details while researching. Those details will draw your readers in.
#3 Look for more than just the facts
The way we and our characters experience the world is subjective. Just as much as facts make your work believable, giving your readers opinions and letting them react to the world around them is important. This helps with characterization and gives your work an emotional punch. Reaction videos and product reviews are great sources for understanding people’s opinions and seeing how they react to events. Listening to people tell their own stories is also helpful.
#4 Use Smart Search Terms
The amount of information on the internet is ever-expanding. Sifting through that information to find what you need can be difficult and overwhelming sometimes. Search engines help, but sometimes getting the exact results you’re looking for is a challenge.You can make search engines work for you by using some simple commands to refine your searches.
Putting your terms inside quotation marks will search for your terms exactly, while adding a tilde in front will include synonyms for the words you’re searching on. A dash before a word in your search terms will exclude the word that follows it. This is useful for narrowing searches of common terms. You can specify the kind of results you’re looking for by using location: or filetype: before your search terms. All of these refinements can help you sift through the volumes of information and get the results you need.
#5 Check your sources
Unfortunately, the internet is also full of misinformation or articles that are out-of-date. When you find the information you’re looking for, you should make note of the sources of the information. Because it is so easy to post articles on the internet, it’s important to be skeptical of the information you find. If you’re looking for facts, be sure to use multiple sources for confirmation. Know the business model of websites you are using as sources and be conscious of the potential for bias. Wikipedia is a great resource, but it is crowd-sourced so its accuracy will vary. It does require that editors include their sources, so it makes a good bibliography. You can also use fact-checking websites like Factcheck.org, MediaBiasFactCheck.com and Snopes.com.
There is a lot more I could say aboutresearchingfor fiction. In fact, I wrote a chapter on researching for Launchpad: The Countdown to Writing Your Book with more details. The key thing to remember is that everything we read or observe feeds into what we write. The best research for fiction is observing the world and the people around us.
The Once & Future Series
Celtic legends and modern life collide in this saga of a contemporary woman coming to grips with a destiny set in motion generations ago. Inspired by her unusual childhood in rural Appalachia, Sarah MacAlpin is set on pursuing a career as a folklorist. She had a rough start in life but has worked tirelessly to set herself on the right track. Just when Sarah comes closest to reaching her professional goals, a startling revelation turns her whole world upside down.
The River Maiden, book 1 of the Once & Future series is free on most ebook platforms.
Launch Pad: The Countdown to Writing Your Book
You can read Meredith’s chapter on research and my chapter on grammar in Launch Pad: The Countdown to Writing Your Book.
Each focused chapter brings authors and would-be-authors closer to the creation of a story well told and ready for publication. The brainchild of entrepreneur, author, and speaker, Grace Sammon, this book series builds on the wildly popular radio show LAUNCH PAD – celebrating book releases and the authors who create them. With countdown tips, ways to connect directly to the authors, and bonus downloadable planning sheets, LAUNCH PAD delivers a craft book that speaks right to you.
Meredith R. Stoddard is the author of folklore-inspired fiction including her Once & Future Series, a contemporary fantasy series that blends Celtic legends with modern life. She is also a book coach at The Book Grower, and the Communications Director of Bookish Road Trip, a community of readers, writers, and travel lovers where she hosts an Instagram Live program called Author Ride Along. She is a contributor to the Launch Pad Countdown series on writing, publishing and marketing books from Red Penguin Books, and a member of Author Talk Network. Her latest novel Thistle & Lion will be released June 8th, 2023.
Hi there! I’m Stacy Juba, an author, freelance editor, and the founder of Shortcuts for Writers. I’d love to connect. If you’re a writer, here are a few ways we can work together:
Are you struggling to figure out what mistakes to avoid when plotting your novel? Do you feel like your plots lack depth and direction, or as if your storyline is becoming too complicated? If so, I have great news for you!
It’s just $47, and in this course, you’ll learn how to avoid common pitfalls that can derail your storyline and alienate your readers, and gain insights from an experienced author and editor with over 30 years of industry experience. (That would be me!) 😊
With Perfect Your Plot, you’ll discover: ✅ The top 6 plot development mistakes that writers make ✅ Practical examples, inspired by real editorial letters that I’ve written, to help you avoid these mistakes in your own writing ✅ The fine balance between predictability and believability when crafting your plot
The course is packed with valuable information and resources to help you take your plot to the next level. You’ll get instant access to: ✅ 7 video lessons with closed captions ✅ A cheat sheet recap that you can refer to for every manuscript you write ✅ An actionable worksheet that guides you through evaluating your story for plot flaws
And the course comes with a 7-day money-back guarantee, so you can enroll risk-free.
If you’re ready to whip your storyline into shape, then check out Perfect Your Plot. I pored over 10 years of editorial letters to my clients, finding common plot hole patterns, when putting this course together.
Hi there! I’m Stacy Juba, an author, freelance editor, and the founder of Shortcuts for Writers. I’d love to connect. If you’re a writer, here are a few ways we can work together:
Looking for just the right balance of inspiration, skill building, and a toolbox of writing craft tips? I know just the resource for you. It’s a brand new craft book for writers to read, called LAUNCH PAD: The Countdown to Writing Your Book.
I’m excited to have a chapter included in this jam-packed guide for writers, which gives you the literal ‘launch pad’ for your first (or next!) book. I contributed a chapter on grammar and punctuation, and in it, I delve into the Oxford Comma and how to use it, colons and semicolons, ellipses, and much more.
If you’re intimidated by the thought of outlining your novel or creating rich and complex characters, or want to learn the secret to writing a great scene, Launch Pad has you covered. Learn why using the right point of view in your book is so important and how to choose the right one. Nail those pesky grammar and punctuation slip-ups once and for all and get yourself ‘query ready’.
You’ll also get practical advice on how to research smarter, which tools to use and what you can do if you want to go the extra mile; learn what book coaching is, how it differs from editing, how a coach helps you write your book, and how you can find the right coach for you; and get tips on writing scenes that grab readers’ attention, draw them into your characters’ lives and the world you’ve created, and build up to the big moments you’re working toward later on in the story.
Other topics include: developing suspenseful scenes that hook readers; exploring the principles of world building, the best tools for the job, and how to get off the world building merry-go-round; learning about personality types, understanding the role genre plays in the character you write about, and how to find your character’s inner flaw; why you need to both show and tell if you want to uplevel your craft and pull your reader right into your character’s mind; and where to find critique groups (both in-person and virtual), what you can expect from them, and how they’ll help your writing long-term.
You’ll also discover the three things a publishing gatekeeper wants: knowledge, sparkle, and an attention to detail. Each focused chapter of this book brings authors and would-be-authors closer to the creation of a story well-told and ready for publication.
Hi there! I’m Stacy Juba, an author, freelance editor, and the founder of Shortcuts for Writers. I’d love to connect. If you’re a writer, here are a few ways we can work together:
Welcome to New York Times Bestselling Author Alina Adams, who is returning to the blog to share 5 changes she made to her latest book, My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region. Keep reading to get insight into Alina’s revising strategies on this intriguing historical fiction book, which is rooted in detailed research about a little known chapter of Soviet and Jewish history.
Change #1: The Beginning
The first draft of the book which became My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region opened with three chapters setting up the “present day” sequence—San Francisco, CA 1988. (When the bulk of the book takes place in the 1930s and 1940s, 1988 is “modern.”)
It introduced the heroine, Lena, her difficult relationship with her withholding mother, the death of her beloved father, her teenage daughter, and her controlling husband—as well as the man who would become a potential love interest in the future. The three chapters went into great detail about why Lena always felt unloved by her mother, and how her faltering marriage got to this state: Lena used to love that her husband made all of her decisions for her. It made her feel that he cared about her in a way that her mother did not. Now she feels smothered. Her husband’s not the one that changed; Lena is. She knows it and blames herself . . . but she still can’t help feeling like she wants out. It’s guilt about her daughter that’s making her stay.
However, the feedback I got was to get to the “good stuff”— the story of Lena’s mother and her desperate escape to Birobidzhan, the Jewish Autonomous Region on the border between Russia and China in the mid-1930s—faster.
So the original three chapters became a single prologue which, in the hardback version, now runs a tight 12 pages. I still hit all the main points, but much more compactly. You have to wait for Part Three to get the details. And learn how it all turns out.
Change #2: In the Name of the Father
The first lines of the book read: Lina Mirapolsky’s father was dying. Her husband was trying to get a discount on it.
The newly truncated prologue still opens with the death of Lena’s dad, and her surprise at the way her mother reacts to it.
In the first draft, Lena has always known that he’s her stepfather and adored him anyway.
In the rewrite, his cryptic, dying words send Lena on a hunt which reveals that the man who raised her wasn’t her biological father.
I initially deliberately avoided that, because it felt too cliched, but was ultimately convinced to put it in for the “wham” moment which closes out the prologue. Curious to hear what readers think!
Change #3: Straight Ahead
Part Two of My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region follows Lena’s mother, Regina, from the time a neighbor in her family’s Moscow communal apartment introduces 12-year-old Regina to the dream of Birobidzhan, getting her involved with the Yiddish-language newspaper she publishes as well as the historic figures committed to the cause of an independent Jewish homeland in the Soviet Union, until 18- year-old Regina is forced to flee Moscow to avoid being arrested along with her neighbor and all their compatriots.
In the original draft, the story is told chronologically. In the published version, we first meet Regina as she is fleeing, and the question of what she is fleeing from is left unanswered until much later in the story, when she is forced to confess all. The idea here is to set up suspense as to why Regina is on the run, what she is hiding, and her reasons for being so secretive with everyone she meets, including the man she starts to fall in love with.
Change #4: Slap, Slap, Kiss, Kiss
In my first pass, Regina’s initial meeting with her future love interest is full of antagonism. Regina smugly feels she knows what’s best for Birobidzhan because she’s read books about it better than Aaron, the man who has lived there for years. This leads to lots of witty banter—the kind I frankly, love to write. But it also made Regina come off as unlikable. (I was writing her as a know-it-all teen-ager who would eventually come to realize the error of her ways, wise up, mature, and admit her youthful folly. But I guess nobody wants to wait that long.)
Now, Regina is still cryptic with Aaron, but it’s because she has a secret she doesn’t want him to discover, and also because she is deliberately turned against him by a third party with his own agenda.
The pair still argues and banters, and I was even able to keep some of the same dialogue. But the context and motivation is different, making her less of a brat, and more of a scared kid.
Change #5: Where the Wind Takes You
My first idea for Regina’s story was to have it take place exclusively in Birobidzhan. The little-known history of the place, as well as the paranoid atmosphere—anyone could be arrested at any moment, everyone was always spying on their neighbors, loyalties were constantly shifting, and what was politically safe to say one day could, overnight, become treason—seemed ripe for gripping narrative possibilities.
But then, I decided to up the stakes. Historical fiction, especially featuring Jewish characters, has plundered every aspect of the Holocaust. There isn’t nearly as much written about what was happening at the same time in the Soviet Union.
The USSR lost over 24 million people in their “Great Patriotic War,” roughly half of them military, the other half civilian. The Russians then—as now—fight by throwing bodies at the enemy, treating them as disposable. And then there were the Nazi prisoner of war camps. Western powers were signatories to the Geneva convention. The Soviets were not. Even when they were kept in the same camp, American soldiers were treated much better than Soviet ones. (There’s a reason there were no Soviet prisoners having a goofy, fun time in Hogan’s Heroes.)
Once I did my research there, I decided to throw my heroes from the frying pan of Josef Stalin’s Great Terror into the fire of a Nazi POW camp.
After all, isn’t one aspect of compelling writing to make it seem like things can’t get any worse . . . and then make them get worse?
With his dying breath, Lena’s father asks his family a cryptic question: “You couldn’t tell, could you?” After his passing, Lena stumbles upon the answer that changes her life forever.
As her revolutionary neighbor mysteriously disappears during Josef Stalin’s Great Terror purges, 18-year-old Regina suspects that she’s the Kremlin’s next target. Under cover of the night, she flees from her parents’ communal apartment in 1930s Moscow to the 20th century’s first Jewish state, Birobidzhan, on the border between Russia and China. Once there, Regina has to grapple with her preconceived notions of socialism and Judaism while asking herself the eternal question: What do we owe each other? How can we best help one another? While she contends with these queries and struggles to help Birobidzhan establish itself, love and war are on the horizon.
New York Times Bestselling Author Alina Adams draws on her own experiences as a Jewish refugee from Odessa, USSR as she provides readers a rare glimpse into the world’s first Jewish Autonomous Region. My Mother’s Secret is rooted in detailed research about a little known chapter of Soviet and Jewish history while exploring universal themes of identity, love, loss, war, and parenthood. Readers can expect a whirlwind journey as Regina finds herself and her courage within one of the century’s most tumultuous eras.
Alina is the author of soap-opera tie-ins, figure skating mysteries, and romance novels. She was born in Odessa, USSR and moved to the US with her family in 1977. She has covered figure skating for ABC, NBC, ESPN and Lifetime, and worked for the soap-operas As the World Turns, Guiding Light, All My Children, and One Life To Live. Her historical fiction novels, The Nesting Dolls (2020) and My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region are based on a combination of family history and rigorous research.
Hi there! I’m Stacy Juba, an author, freelance editor, and the founder of Shortcuts for Writers. I’d love to connect. If you’re a writer, here are a few ways we can work together:
As a freelance developmental editor and line editor, I’ve worked on hundreds of manuscripts. Mysteries, suspense, romance, thrillers, science fiction, fantasy, historical, young adult, memoirs, essays, health, self-help. You’ve named it, I’ve probably edited it.
Despite the diverse categories, all those books have something in common. Each author has overused emotion words they fall back on in their writing. Crutch words weaken your voice and weigh down your story.
Want to know what the biggest culprit is?
You guessed it.
Look.
Looking.
Looked.
If you do a search in your manuscript, I’ll bet you find more “looks” than you expected. It’s not that you can never use look and its variations. It’s just that you shouldn’t overuse them. Some authors have one on every page, multiple times. Over a 300-page novel, that is one heck of a lot of looks.
Even if your overuse isn’t that extreme, chances are you’ve got more than you need. Most writers are stunned once I point it out to them.
The toolkit contains jam-packed cheat sheets of over 4,000 emotional prompts in 21 categories such as anger, annoyance and frustration, arrogance, boredom, compassion, confidence, and contemplation. And that’s just A-C! It also includes a walk-through video, overview of nonverbal communication for authors, examples from published books, a workbook, a list of helpful tips, and bonus resources.
Writers have raved about it, as you’ll see from the testimonials when you visit the landing page.
If you’d like to sample the Energize Your Writing Toolkit, then you can start by signing up for The Looks and Gazes Quickstart Guide. Discover more than 100 ways to describe your characters’ looks and gazes and start punching up those trite sentences. The cheat sheets come directly from the Energize Your Writing Toolkit.
Hi there! I’m Stacy Juba, an author, freelance editor, and the founder of Shortcuts for Writers. I’d love to connect. If you’re a writer, here are a few ways we can work together:
Too many writers are making a big mistake. They’re not giving their manuscript the rehabilitation it needs, even though it’s suffering from the literary equivalent of bursitis, sciatica, an ACL tear, and plantar fasciitis.
Ouch!
Some writers believe their manuscript is much stronger than it really is because let’s face it, no one teaches you how to write a book in high school. Others aren’t sure what to do next, so they tinker without a strategy. Eventually, they might send the book to a freelance editor, and only then do they realize that one round of editing won’t be enough by a longshot.
Just like a single physical therapy visit won’t suffice for a person coping with bursitis, sciatica, an ACL tear, or plantar fasciitis—let alone ALL of those ailments at the same time.
Unfortunately, if you’re like most writers, your manuscript is a minefield of injuries and weak spots. It needs a comprehensive rehab plan and lots of TLC.
Free Book Editing Masterclass
If you are someone with a desire to help your book reach its full potential and give your story the chance it deserves, then I want to invite you to watch an on-demand recording of my FREE training: How to Create Your Editing Game Plan and Fast-Track Your Book: 3 Costly Mistakes to Avoid.
After this class, you will be able to identify the:
4 stages of editing
Types of editors and what they do
Average costs of publishing a book
You’ll also walk away knowing:
Why hiring an editor too early can be a costly mistake
The differences between high-level and low-level edits so that you can aim high
The basics of the self-editing framework I’ve taught to hundreds of authors
Intrigued? Sign up for this free book editing masterclass right here.
Hi there! I’m Stacy Juba, an author, freelance editor, and the founder of Shortcuts for Writers. I’d love to connect. If you’re a writer, here are a few ways we can work together:
