|
Welcome to my world of stories. I’m Jona Alston, literary fiction author, sharing exclusive updates, behind-the-scenes insights, and the books and content that have inspired the worlds and characters I create.
JONA ALSTON ALSON STORIES Hi everyone! Welcome back. And thank you for being here. A friend of mine pointed something out to me while I was working on my second draft. He said I don’t really use descriptions when I write. And honestly, he wasn’t wrong. Reading more helped me see why that matters. You don’t notice descriptions when they’re done well, but they shape the entire world the story lives in. Without them, there’s nothing for the reader to picture. I still have to go back sometimes...
JONA ALSTON ALSON STORIES Hi everyone! Welcome back. And thank you for being here. When I started writing my debut novel, the thing that intimidated me most was the word count. The very first version was only forty-five pages. It’s now over three hundred. But at the time, the idea of writing that much felt overwhelming. I didn’t know how long a chapter was supposed to be. I kept seeing people query novels at ninety thousand words, while my second draft barely scraped fifty thousand. But it...