If querying literary agents isn’t difficult enough, how is a writer who is attempting to break into the business supposed to decipher the sales figures that are posted by major agents in areas such as the Dead Reckoning section of Agent Search (which is superb by the way) when individual statistics during a 12 month…
Author Archives:
Query Letter Writing Fact and Fiction
Fact: Query Letter Writing is an Art Form. Make no mistake about it, writing queries that produce results is a craft. Fact: A Query Should Not be Written Like a Synopsis. I devoted an entire article to this, yet writers who have read the article continue to send me sample queries that ignore this premise….
Coming up with a Great Opening for a Novel
Nothing is more critical than the first few lines of a story, since this will often influence whether or not a reader will continue with a work. And a great opening is never more important than for a non-established writer who is trying to garner an audience or the budding author who is trying to…
Why Can’t I Get My Novel Published?
There are abundant bear traps along the way that even writers who are old hands at accepting the vagaries of the publishing industry are having difficulty navigating in the current literary marketplace. Here are several issues–some old, some new–to consider. Pitching a Book to the Wrong Agent or Publisher is Problem #1 Genre specificity plagues…
Eight Hints to Properly Format a Manuscript for an Agent, Editor or Publisher
A writer can start with The Chicago Manual of Style and move from it to any number of academic works on what a manuscript layout should look like. But adhering to the following eight suggestions will assure an acceptable format for almost all commercial fiction. Hint Number One – Your Name, Page Number and Book…
Write a Novel – The Difference Between Voice and Tone
One of the best ways to understand something is to provide different treatments of the subject. Thomas Mann’s eight stories in the popular Vintage imprint with DEATH IN VENICE as the lead title is ideal to work from, since each story is written in a different voice. Yet his masterpiece, THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN, depicts his…
Write a Novel – How to Get Published
To write a novel that will be appealing to a major royalty publisher involves more than just talent and hard work. It requires creating a plan from the outset and the discipline to follow it. Everybody Has a Story Worth Telling If you have begun reading this article, there’s a good possibility you have either…
Write a Novel – Point of View and Techniques for Effective Shifts
The first question some people might ask is why any writer would need to learn techniques related to Point of View. Doesn’t POV automatically synchronize with the character’s thoughts as soon as these feelings are expressed by the writer? And isn’t the POV of a scene easily identified by an attribute or obvious implication? If…
Writing Tips For Novelists – Inserting Dialogue to Improve Narrative Pacing
It would be nice to relate that few writers ever have pacing issues, but as any novelist knows, the story’s tempo is often–as it should be–on the forefront of an author’s mind.In the writing workshops I facilitate that are sponsored by the Palm Beach County Library System, budding authors often ask about ways to better…