The Surprise Baby Trope: some folks absolutely adore this trope. I’m not one of them. If you’ve known me or followed me for a while, you probably already know why. But if you don’t, I’m going to let you know below and give you some simple things you can do to care for your readers if you choose to use this trope in your romance novels. October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. And this blog post is in honour of the parents who have experienced these terrible tragedies and live on every day remembering their children that didn’t get to grow up and missing the children who never got ..read more

Remember back in school when you had to write thesis statement for your essay? Or how in English class you had to decipher the meaning behind EVERYTHING in every story or book you read? It was super frustrating, right? While some instructors go overboard on this topic—forcing you to find meaning in every single choice the author made—the overarching idea is legitimate. A theme makes your story stronger. If there isn’t a common thread or overarching point that threads through your novel from beginning to end, it’s a lot harder to make it stick together as a cohesive whole. The reader finishes t ..read more

The past few weeks have been incredibly exciting as one of my clients received and accepted an offer of representation from a literary agent. Congrats to Molly Rookwood, author of The Marriage Plotz, a queer, Jewish, fake-dating romance novel. I absolutely loved working with Molly as she crafted her query package and went on her querying journey, and I am stoked to one day see her book on the shelf at my local bookstore. Unless you’re already a part the publishing industry (or a really keen researcher), you might not know much about what querying is, why it’s important, or what it actually inv ..read more

Welcome to a new occasional feature on trishajennreads.com! Every once in a while, I’m going to introduce you to a romance author I love who has agreed to be interviewed. Some of these folks might be clients of mine, and I will always be upfront with you if they are. Brenna Bailey, Author of A TALE OF TWO FLORISTS Brenna Bailey writes queer contemporary romance. When she’s not writing, she runs an editing business called Bookmarten Editorial. If her nose isn’t buried in a book, you can probably find her out in the woods somewhere admiring plants or attempting to identify birds. She is a starry ..read more

Last month I wrote about how to identify your writing goals. As cliché as it felt, it made sense to start there in January since so many folks like to set new goals at the beginning of a new calendar year. But that’s where it gets tricky. Just because we’ve started a new annual calendar, doesn’t mean we are actually prepared to do what needs to be done to meet those goals. So once you’ve decided on what one or two or three writing goals you have for the year, how do you go about doing the work to checking those off and giving yourself a star sticker for accomplishing what you set out to do? Su ..read more

What is Character Voice? Character voice is how a character talks and the way they express themselves in their thoughts and actions. If all your characters have the same voice (i.e. sound the same) it’s hard for the reader to connect to your characters and care about them. They don’t seem real or believable. If the characters in dual or multi point of view novels all sound the same it becomes difficult to tell the characters apart. If multiple characters use the same phrase over and over again, that’s a red flag that their voices may not be unique to their personalities and backgroun ..read more

My last blog post was published on August 17, 2020 and it’s now October 2022…so yeah, it’s been a while. Why did I disappear? What have I been up to for the last two years and why am I back now? I’m so glad you asked! Why did I disappear? I used to blog a lot. A LOT. Earlier in the life of this little website (when it was solely a blog and not the home of my business), I sometimes published five blog posts a week. And then I slowed it down to one per week, which felt manageable when I was also trying to get my freelance business going. And then pregnancy loss and infertility really started to ..read more

Character voice is how a character talks. When it's done poorly, readers aren't able to connect with your characters. But when it's done well, the character's come to life ..read more

I've been waiting for motherhood for nearly four years. I'm still waiting to be part of that club. It's not an easy wait ..read more

When two teens who don't really like each other agree to fake date to save their summer, things don't go as planned ..read more