Jade Varden Official Blog

"It kept me in constant suspense throughout the story and once again it was virtually impossible to predict who did what." "The unpredictability of the book is what makes it so great." Sienna Logan, at Lost to Books, has followed up her review of Justice with new reviews for The Tower and Death, the second and third books in the Deck of Lies! "This series is great and I would recommend it to everyone! The murder mystery keeps you in suspense and the love interests keeps you hooked." Visit the site to read the full review of The Tower .  "Jade Varden once again surprised me by turning the story on its head again and continuing it in a way I'm sure no one will predict." See if you can predict where the story's going after you read the full review of Death .

Many authors like to read the work of other authors, and it's easy to get inspired by the greats. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so isn't it only natural that authors emulate the authors they like? Just know that, when you do, you should consider the source. Some of the most popular books aren't necessarily well-written, and you definitely don't want to take a page from them and re-produce the bad grammar. Bad Grammar, Poor Punctuation Some books explode into pop culture unexpectedly, becoming wildly popular and read by large audiences. But it cannot be taken for granted that such books are well-written, or shining examples of good grammar. In fact, sometimes the exact opposite is true. There are literally hundreds of books that sold well but still had horrible mistakes within the pages, but for the purposes of this post we're only going to talk about two mega bestsellers. One's a self-published book, and one is not. ...

Justice (Deck of Lies, #1) is being featured next week, and you'll never guess where. The book is coming to Fashion Fantasy Game to give readers the chance to dress Rain, the main character in the Deck of Lies series. I've blogged about Rain's style in the past, and Deck of Lies readers know that fashion plays a strong part in the series. If you keep reading the series, you'll find that Rain's fashion choices often reflect how she's feeling about herself and her life. But maybe you can do a little better than me at dressing her up. Visit the Facebook page for Fashion Fantasy Game to find out when the competition begins. When it does, you'll have a chance to win my giveaway -- and to blow me away with your amazing fashion sense. Now, go have fun!

When you're a writer, there's always room for learning. It's always good to expand your knowledge, and it's never a bad idea to look up information even on the basics of writing to brush up on your grammar, punctuation and wordcrafting skills. But there's something important you need to know if you go looking for ways to improve your fiction: not all tips are good. Sometimes, the writing advice you find isn't necessarily stuff you should always follow.  Come Again? It might sound strange coming from me, considering the nature of my blog, but it's true: not all writing tips you find should be taken to heart. In looking around the Internet, I've found more than a few that I just plain don't agree with.  Bad Tips In fact, there are an awful lot of bad tips out there. If you attempt to follow every single one of them, you might end up with a book that's so cautiously written it won't make you happy. Remember that you aren...

I blog a lot, and work on my books a lot, and a I tweet a lot . Sometimes people ask me, how do you manage to do so much? Well, I'm finally ready to shatter the illusion and give you some answers. Read my guest post, How Do You Find the Time , to learn all my scheduling and time-saving secrets. It's not possible to do it all...but you can make it look like you are.

The Outsiders was one of the very few books I was forced to read that I actually really loved (and actually read all the way through). At least, I thought I loved it...but then I saw the movie. Sure the story's great, but when you add the likes of Rob Lowe to it the whole thing gets turned up several notches. On film, The Outsiders is a parade of up-and-comers in sleeveless shirts, and there's nothing wrong with that. The Book   S. E. Hinton started writing The Outsiders at age 15, and Viking Press published it when she was only 18. That was way back in 1967, but it still sells half a million copies every year. Hinton wrote the book about the two rival gangs at her high school: the Greasers and the Socials (shorted to Socs and pronounced soshes ). The book became iconic and extremely popular right away, solidifying S. E. Hinton as a beloved YA author. The story of The Outsiders , a group of poor greasers who are endlessly pitted against the rich and priv...

Justice is being featured next week  on one of my favorite book blogs. Take a look at this introductory post to find out what sorts of fun things you can expect and to participate in a discussion about assigned school reading.

Creativity is chaotic by nature. Inspiration may strike at any time, even when it's inconvenient, and you may think of the ending for a book long before you come up with a viable beginning. Sometimes, a setting might strike you first and you end up building a story around it. No matter what your process might be, staying organized is the only way you're going to write a book without making yourself completely crazy (or turning your book into a big mess).  How to Do It Ideas don't arrive in a neat, orderly fashion, and all the pieces of a book probably aren't going to come together in order. That means you have to make notes as they come to you, and figure out how all of them come to together while you're writing. If you're unorganized, you're going to lose your great ideas. You're going to have trouble finding all your notes and remembering all your information, and wind up wasting a bunch of time looking back through your book to figure it ...

"I LOVED every minute of it!!" "The plot itself was utterly gripping. There’s a lot of mystery at every turn." Justice has just been reviewed at BookAThonFreak ! Visit the blog to read the whole thing, and don't forget that the book is available free from Smashwords for just a few more days. If you haven't already got your copy, get it before the July release celebration for Death is over! 

If you spend any significant amount of time writing, the question is going to come up: when is it okay to consecutively repeat words? Most often, this question will arise in sentences where the word that appears. It might sounds silly at first blush -- who would write a sentence with that that in it? -- but I've seen it...a lot . And under any and all circumstances, no matter which big-selling author does it in their bestselling book, it is wrong . At times it may feel unavoidable, but it never is. Repetition I've blogged about over-use of the word that in the past, but it bears repeating. What doesn't need to be repeated is words. Always remember this: twice in a row is too many.  Scoff if you will, but that that actually crops up more often than you might think. In fact, when I went looking for examples of the dreaded that that , I found too many:  "I tell you, I gotta plead ignorance on this thing, because if anyone had said anything to me at ...

It's important to write rich and descriptive text, a fact I've expounded upon more than once, but you also have to learn how to edit out all the uninteresting details, too. In any book, there are several plot points you need to hit to make your story work. All of those scenes should be vivid and embellished, so the readers can see all the events unfolding in their mind's eye. But there are always additional moments that happen in-between the action...and I really don't want to know a whole lot about them. If you're going to write books, you'd better learn how to summarize the boring moments and skip ahead in the narrative.  Details, Details, Details Lots of readers love long books, and I used to. Half of the enjoyment of the later Harry Potter books lies in the fact that they're massive. But no one wants to read a whole bunch of nothing. Some details aren't important.  Your characters live a life on the page...but let's face it, ever...

I've written posts about getting reviews, swapping reviews and writing reviews, but I'm still learning new things all the time. In my admittedly brief experience with reviewing other authors, I've figured out a few things the hard way. To help you avoid some of the mess I've struggled with, I'm offering up some tips that you need to know if you're going to open yourself up to doing reviews.  Review Tips At this point, you might be thinking but you don't do reviews . I know I give that illusion; I haven't posted a new review in over a month. This is quite deceptive, however. In spite of what it looks like, I've been working on reading a book I'm committed to review this entire time. And that brings us straight to what I now believe is the most important review tip:  Check the length. Every new ebook is a mystery. Unless the author has also published a print version of their book, you probably won't find a helpful little page count...

"You just don't know how to use the English language." Many authors who receive a cruel rejection such as this one might throw away their dictionaries, burn their thesaurus and develop a deep hatred of the literary world. The author who received this letter ended up writing one of the world's most beloved books instead, a story so good that Disney couldn't wait to get their hands on it 75 years later.  Rudyard Kipling received the quote above in a rejection letter from an editor at the San Francisco Examiner . To his credit, the editor prefaced the quote with "I'm sorry," though any author knows this small courtesy probably didn't do much to ease the sting.     Inner Strength Kipling lived an interesting life. He was born in 1865 in Bombay and was immersed in the world of the arts early, spending time around painters and sculptors. He didn't find his love of words until he was a college student in north Devon 13 years later. ...

Many stories are told in a linear fashion (first this happened, then this happened), but you don't have to write your books that way. Skipping around is a time-honored writing tradition that can help you get past tricky scenes, writer's block and plot problems. When your book just isn't behaving itself, try skipping to a different part of the story -- you might be pleasantly surprised by the results.   Skipping Around I have to stay pretty organized when I write, because I get distracted easily by little details. If I don't have a path to follow, I'll end up wandering off into the weeds. So usually, I write my books from beginning to end and that's that. But sometimes, skipping around is the only possible solution to a tricky writing problem -- and I had to face it myself. I'm currently working on Judgment, the last book in the Deck of Lies series, and so far I've been all over the place story-wise. What I've learned is that sometimes, s...

Cliffhangers are an effective writing trick, and fans of the Deck of Lies series know I love using them. But there's a dark side to using cliffhangers in fiction. Don't let it take you by surprise, or lull you into using cliffhangers indiscriminately. What Goes Up... At the end of a chapter, a cliffhanger leaves the reader hungry for more -- and it compels them to keep reading when they might decide to close the book otherwise. Readers want to be thrilled, they want to feel suspense, they want the tension and the drama. Cliffhangers are a very suitable way to give them all of that, but like all good things cliffhangers have to be used in moderation...and sometimes, they shouldn't be used at all.  It's important to include some natural stopping points in any book, because no one can read all the time. Ideally, your readers will read your story all the way through without putting it down once...but that's not always possible. Natural pauses and stop...

Some books on film become so monumental in the movie industry, it's easy to forget that once upon a time, the story existed only on a printed page. The Shining is so iconic that Jack Nicholson is still famous for it 30 years later, and it's still one of the most frightening films ever made. But as a novel, Stephen King's famous book tells a very different tale.  The Book The Shining is one of Stephen King's earliest novels, and one of his most beloved. The book was a turning point in his career, solidifying him as a top-notch horror author -- a reputation he still holds today. The famous film version of the book focuses on Jack Torrance, but the novel is more oriented on his young son, Danny, who has an unusual talent.  Danny is the only child for either of his parents, who are trapped in a bad marriage. He's often haunted by the dark thoughts he senses swirling in his father's head, thoughts of suicide and divorce. Jack Torrance is an aspiri...

Some stories are so ancient and so popular, they don't just come back once. Some of them keep coming back through the years, sometimes in the same medium and sometimes in brand-new ones. Homer's The Odyssey is required reading for many, considered to be a can't-miss by some...and literally older than Christianity itself.  The Original Scholars believe The Odyssey was written by Homer, somewhere in the Greek coastal region of Anatolia, perhaps near the end of the 8th century BC. It's so old, it's hard to know exactly where or when it came from, but it seems to be a continuation of the story Homer began in The Iliad . It's an epic poem, a form of writing that used to be popular many years ago, and it's been read by a great many people who attended school...because they're made to do so. The story revolves around Odysseus, who is trying to return to his home at the end of the Trojan War, which has lasted for 10 years. He has been fighting in ...

"I was not able to stop myself reading on, I told myself one more chapter and ended up reading six instead." "I would recommend this book to anyone and can't wait to read 'The Tower'" Justice (Deck of Lies, #1) has been reviewed at Lost to Books ! Read the entire review to find out why the reader never wanted to start the book in first place...and why she's glad she did. 

I saw an author trying to creatively promote themselves on Goodreads the other day with an interesting, funny little forum post. Here's the rub: the post was riddled with grammatical errors. A thought popped into my head, unbidden: Sure I'll buy your book. Just as soon as you can string together two intelligent sentences .  I immediately felt bad, of course. I don't want to have mean thoughts, or anything, and this guy's just trying to sell some books. But it did get me to thinking (not just mean things, either) about the image of an author. Whether you're an indie or someone with a famous name, you are always an author.  And I'm always going to expect you to write like it. An Author's Image An author's image matters, and when you're presenting yourself on social media sites, your blog or anywhere else as your author persona, you've got to remember something very important: you are always an author.  When you're pre...

"If you have an idea what this book is about you will be rushing to download a copy too...Every chapter bought fresh excitement, and even more questions to light, and I just had to keep reading." -on Justice (Deck of Lies, #1) "The question still remains though; who had the means and will to murder one of her classmates? And what were they trying to hide?...I really enjoyed this book. I picked this one up straight after finishing the first one, cause I couldn’t wait to find out what happened next!" -on The Tower (Deck of Lies, #2) The Deck of Lies has found a home on Sarah Elizabeth's bookshelf this week. She's kindly reviewed the entire first half of the series. Read both her reviews, and don't stop there! If you keep going, you'll find a new interview with me where I reveal what I think about the characters in the Deck of Lies and what you can expect to find in the fourth and final book of the series. Check out the giveaway at the...

I love a good prologue. My first favorite writer always included them, and even when they read more like a first chapter than a novel introduction, I was always down. It wasn't until I started reading writing forums and looking at writer blogs that I realized some people hate them -- passionately, vehemently, unendingly. And if you start looking for writing tips at will, you're going to find a lot of know-it-alls who will tell you, over and over again, that prologues are anathema in fiction.  I don't agree...and I'm here to defend prologues.  Prologues, a History Prologues have a long history as an integral part of fiction. Shakespeare and other playwrights opened their stories with prologues, generally delivered in a monologue, in order to set the stage for the audience. The prologue from Romeo and Juliet is famous ("In fair Verona, where we lay our scene..."). Since those early days of fiction writing, novelists have adopted their own v...