This weekend, I attended the Romantic Novelists' Association's mini virtual conference. It was a late evening, but I was able to enjoy a whole range of writing webinars from the comfort of my own home. It was such a fantastic night! I was especially keen to attend the Creating Conflict presentation from the Mills and Boon editors.

​There was a lot of information, but these are just three take home messages from each of the sessions.

Thank you to everyone who attended Popular Fiction's online meeting about creating characters, the most essential part of writing a book! It was great to see all again and to share what I've learned about creating characters with you.

Last night, we covered the basics - characters need a goal, motivation, and conflict to create your story. We will cover this again when we rehash everything we've learned next month. 

Thank you to everyone who attended the First Pages workshop last night! It was amazing to catch up again even on Zoom. I really enjoy these meetings and sharing some of the best tips I've learned on my Writing Journey with you.

Last night we got together to talk about what a first page and chapter needs in order to hook a reader. We discussed what we as readers like and don't like in the opening pages. Then we examined the first pages of a collection of novels.

Popular Fiction is going to be bigger and better this year with interesting workshop topics on the last Wednesday evening of every month. Reviewing the most important aspects of novel writing, I've planned eleven workshops that should be applicable to all novel genres and will help improve the quality of my fellow writers work. Take a look below for a preview of Popular Fiction this year, and I hope to see you there!

This month, I put together a workshop exploring the key aspects needed in order to start writing a novel. As the Popular Fiction group is filling with writers who are just starting out or hoping to write their first manuscript, I thought this would be a valuable workshop as I took them through plotting, characters, point of view, and 'what is my story about?

This month, Popular Fiction discussed the topic of how and when to include sex in your novel. Sex is a popular selling point in fiction and other forms of storytelling. Consider the popularity of Mills and Boon's Sexy (now Modern) line and TV shows like Grey's Anatomy, Game of Thrones, or Outlander. While sex isn't the main action here, it holds a major drawcard to increase the popularity of these books/shows.

​So what about sex in fiction Dos your book need sex? This is something only you can decide.

At the Popular Fiction Writers Group this week, we discussed popular romance tropes. What makes these tropes popular? Where do they fit in to today's society? And how can we improve these tropes and make them unique?

While the conversation was indeed interesting, below are a list of my favourite tropes and why I like them. Please remember, these are only my opinions and based on what I enjoy reading.