R.M. Archer

Hello and welcome to what is both the last installment of this year’s Know the Novel link-up as well as my last blog post for this year as I take a December hiatus to enjoy the holidays and recharge for the new year. (Go back to the beginning of this year’s Know the Novel series here.) Today we get to look back on Lightning and the writing process thereof, as well as plans moving forward and…

We’ve officially entered the time of year in which women everywhere gather around their TVs with fuzzy blankets and hot cocoa to watch predictable romance movies that happen to center around the Christmas season. And let’s admit it, there’s a certain Continue reading Untitled

Glossy, double-sided bookmark featuring Calligraphy Guild promo art. Artwork credit to RavenFire from 99designs.

Glossy, single-sided bookmark featuring the cover art of Calligraphy Guild. Cover art credit to Alli May.

Matte, single-sided bookmark featuring watercolor art of a tea set on a low table. Artwork credit to my younger sister.

Glossy, single-sided bookmark featuring the following quote from The Mirror-Hunter Chronicles: “So the mirror tells the future?” “The mirror does an awful lot of things. None of them worth the price.”

Matte, double-sided bookmark featuring watercolor artwork of a quetzal. Artwork credit to my younger sister.

One of the earliest installments in this series covered how to write about false religions, those that aren’t even real within your world. But today I want to cover the separate issue of how to write about religions that are designed to reflect the truth of who our God is within the context of a fictional world. As always, this is intended to be food-for-thought, not the one proper Continue…

The time has come for part 2 of the Know the Novel link-up for this year! Now that we’re a good chunk of the way through November, let’s talk about how Lightning and Thunder are going and what I expect moving forward. If you missed Continue reading Untitled

Classic literature did it better. Okay, not always, but there is a lot to be said for classic literature that can’t (often) be said for modern literature, and I think that modern authors–even modern Christian authors–have lost sight of a lot of the values that can be found in classic literature and the lives of classic authors. Today I want to look at some of the qualities of classic writing that…

Tomorrow is National Author’s Day, so it seemed fitting to focus today’s post on how to appreciate the writers around us. If you’re a writer yourself, you might already be thinking about these things, but if you’re not–if you’re a family member or friend of a writer–then here are some tips for showing your appreciation for the authors who are important to you. (For any family members reading this…

Here’s another “how should Christians write about…?” post, and this time the topic is something I’m personally working and praying through for a project. As always, this post is meant to be food-for-thought, to lay out the scriptural guidelines for a particular topic and what we do or don’t have the freedom to include in our stories (or how we do or don’t have the freedom to portray it) based on…

Hello, and welcome to my first writing update sort of post in a very long time, lol. Some of you may know, if you follow me on social media or are subscribed to my mailing list, that I’ve been working on a couple of book projects this year. One is a non-fiction project that I’m not saying much about yet; the other is a sci-fi novel called Lightning, which I’m Continue reading Untitled

Defining the purpose of your fictional world is a foundational and yet often overlooked step of worldbuilding. Leaving your world’s purpose indefinite and vague opens the door wide to overwhelm, lack of direction, and frustration with the worldbuilding process. But defining a world’s purpose can feel limiting–and how do you effectively frame the purpose of a world, anyway? Hence often overlooking…

This post is based on a question I got quite a while back and answered for a newsletter subscriber. Bethani asked, “How do you write stories that are intriguing without using too many words?” I’d been intending to expand this into a blog post for at least several months, and finally got to it in my big batching project before my wedding so I can finally share Continue reading Untitled

Sworn to the Sea is a complete rewrite of a book I reviewed previously, Slave of the Sea, so Dawn reached out to me during re-release to see if I would share my review as someone who has the experience of having read both versions. It took me longer than I’d hoped to have the time to say yes, but I slotted in Sworn to the Sea as soon Continue reading Untitled