Zainah Yousef

One of the most important elements you need to decide when you go to write a novel is the setting of your story. The setting plays a major role in everything, down to the language, the culture, the way of life, the religion, etc… Choosing a setting for your story can seem a bit complicated, […]

One of the biggest self-publishing platforms for authors nowadays has to be, without a doubt, Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). Amazon actually got its start as a bookstore. Since then, it’s of course evolved beyond that by a dramatic amount, but Amazon is still a giant in the book market. With its Kindle devices, it

Fantasy and romance are each some of the biggest genres in literature out there and have been some of the biggest for what feels like forever. Now, of course, there are people (like myself) who enjoy it when stories combine the two elements together. The rapidly growing combination of fantasy and romance has created an

Romance is written in a number of different ways, depending on if it’s the focus of the story or if it exists within the story’s plot, but not as the main plot. Furthermore, it also depends on if the author is going for specific tropes or not. One of the more popular structures in romance

Villains are among the most popular characters in fictional stories. Take a look at Star Wars for instance, where everybody seems to love the villain Darth Vader. There are also plenty of romance novels where the villain is a romantic interest of the main character. How about The Lord of the Rings, where the villain

Self-publishing is certainly not a new phenomenon in the book world, but it’s definitely been gaining some traction and has been increasing in popularity more and more over the past few years. Although the traditional publishing route is still a very valid and very solid option to strive for, some authors have found tons of

As a writer and author, I’ve always looked for tools that facilitate the writing process and make it more user-friendly, intuitive, organized, or just plain easier. Of course, when I first started writing, I used Google Docs and Microsoft Word since those were the tools available at my disposal easily, but it turns out that

If you picked up a random book from your local bookstore, chances are you’ll find that it was written in one of the two perspectives: First- or third-person, and less commonly second-person. Now, when the author of that book made the decision to write from that particular perspective, there was a reason. Of course, I’m

At the core of a story is the idea of conflict. Conflict allows for a plot to be driven forward, create relationships, and build tension in a story. Without conflict, stories tend to feel quite boring. Our normal day-to-day lives have conflict of some sort, from maybe dropping a cup on the ground to getting