Unbalancing Act: When Fiction Normalizes Unhealthy Romance
This is my first article written for and published by Editing Research. It’s a preview of a scientific article dealing with unhealthy portrayals of romance in fiction, and it includes my thoughts and experiences relating to principles taught in the original article.
“Unbalancing Act: When Fiction Normalizes Unhealthy Romance” was written for an adult writing and publishing audience.
Heavenly Support in Our Hardships
This is an article I wrote for the Latter-day Saint Insights website. It’s a preview of another article, and it includes my thoughts and experiences relating to principles taught in the original article.
“Heavenly Support in Our Hardships” was written for a young adult audience.
Masha, Kolya, and Me
In this creative nonfiction short story, I show how we need to rely on the Spirit more than on ourselves to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. In this story, I depict my companion’s and my experience of bringing a new investigator to a Book of Mormon–themed stake activity. I also show what happened when I obeyed the Holy Ghost’s prompting to ask someone I didn’t like for help with sharing the gospel when my own knowledge and capacities weren’t enough.
“Masha, Kolya, and Me” was written for the audience of YA Weekly and the magazine For the Strength of Youth.
Names have been changed
Out of My Hands
This is a creative nonfiction short story about trusting in the Lord’s plan. It depicts my experience watching a close friend regress in the gospel, and my struggle to figure out how to help her. The result was a powerful triple-revelation led to wonderful blessings.
“Out of My Hands” was written for the audience of YA Weekly and the magazines For the Strength of Youth and Liahona.
Names have been changed
Vilify: 14 Secrets to Writing Unforgettable Villains
This creative nonfiction guide takes writers through the steps of developing a villain, and teaches them how to create the ultimate baddies for their fiction. This guide demonstrates how to
- choose the role a villain will play in the story,
- decide what type of villain the story needs,
- and apply the secrets that form attention-grabbing villains.
Vilify also shows how the principles of villain-making apply to famous and well-loved bad guys in literature and film. This guide helps writers make their readers laugh, cry, or shiver when they read their stories.
“If a person I love did something horrible, how can I forgive them?”
In this nonfiction article, I answer the question “If a person I love did something horrible, how can I forgive them?” Drawing from others’ experiences, prophets’ words, and scriptural counsel, I show that forgiveness is possible even when someone has committed a horrible sin. Sometimes the forgiveness takes time, and sometimes victims and people affected by the sin need to heal before they can feel ready to forgive someone. Thankfully there are many resources to help with healing so that people can reach the point where they feel they can truly forgive those who hurt them.
This article was written for the audience of the magazine For the Strength of Youth.
Names have been changed
[back blurb]
I wrote the back cover copy for this author’s young adult novel. This book is set in a steampunk New York and tells the story of Priscilla, a young detective who begins to piece together secrets about the appearance of unearthlies, humans who suddenly developed monstrous and magical qualities. Priscilla must put aside her insecurities and prejudices in order to figure out what horrible thing is going on in the streets of New York and stop it before it leads to even worse things.
The author of this novel is taking a hiatus from this to work on other stories, which I have also helped with.
Character/place names have been changed
Review of Storm Glass
As a volunteer for Brigham Young University’s science fiction and fantasy magazine, Leading Edge, I had the opportunity to write reviews for books that weren’t as well known. I decided to write this reiew of Jeff Wheeler’s Storm Glass, a YA fantasy novel I had read a few months earlier. The book was so well written and interesting that after I finished it, I immediately bought and read the rest of the series (which continued to be amazing). I hope that my review helped other readers discover this masterpiece of fiction.
This review was published in Issue 76 of Leading Edge Magazine.
Other Writing Projects
The One Phrase That Changed the Way I View Marriage, published in the January 2023 Liahona (inspirational nonfiction)
Pioneering (inspirational poem)
Simple Things (inspirational poem)
Forsaken (science fiction short story)
For more of my writing, take a peek at my blog.