It's SFR Galaxy Awards Day!

The 2017 SFR Galaxy Awards recipients will be announced today in seven rounds, beginning with a welcome message at 8:00 AM EST (USA), and featuring an award round every hour beginning at 10:00 AM EST.

Tomorrow marks the sixth year these awards have been presented, and includes a special tribute to late SF/F author Ursula K. Le Guin who passed on January 22, 2018. Her words were the inspiration for these unique awards.

As the posts are made, the links to each individual round will be added below. The schedule is as follows:

2017 SFR Galaxy Awards Welcome Message

Round 1 - 10:00 AM Eastern Standard Time - Chris Stock

Round 2 - 11:00 AM Eastern Standard Time - Heather Massey

Round 3 - 12:00 PM Eastern Standard Time - Marlene Harris

Round 4 -  1:00 PM Eastern Standard Time - Riley Moreland

Round 5 -  2:00 PM Eastern Standard Time - Jo Jones

Round 6 -  3:00 PM Eastern Standard Time - Lee Koven

Round 7 -  4:00 PM Eastern Standard Time - Anna McLain

You can help celebrate the awards by commenting on the awards rounds, and sharing the announcement links and information on social media.

SFRB Recommends #79: The Emotional Craft of Fiction by Donald Maass #writing #craft

While writers might disagree over showing versus telling or plotting versus pantsing, none would argue this: If you want to write strong fiction, you must make your readers feel. The reader's experience must be an emotional journey of its own, one as involving as your characters' struggles, discoveries, and triumphs are for you.

Topics covered include:

• emotional modes of writing
• beyond showing versus telling
• your story's emotional world
• moral stakes
• connecting the inner and outer journeys
• plot as emotional opportunities
• invoking higher emotions, symbols, and emotional language
• cascading change
• story as emotional mirror
• positive spirit and magnanimous writing
• the hidden current that makes stories move

Readers remember books that make them feel. A good romance novel needs to make sure it evokes the right feelings at the right points in the story. How do you make the HEA satisfying? How do you convince the reader that the leads love each other?

Maass goes through many different techniques to up the emotional punch of a scene, character, or overall plot. Some may apply more to your work than others. There are enough of said techniques, though, that most writers should be able to find some effective.

This recommendation by Lee Koven.