When authors receive rejection after rejection from agents and publishers, they may decide to take matters into their own hands and self-publish their works. Many authors, however, choose to self-publish because they want to be in control of the publishing process, not because they were unable to attract a book publisher. If you’re thinking of…
Category Archives: Fiction Writing
Character Building Blocks
While going over a manuscript this past month my writing partner and I have had some serious discussions regarding characters and what drives them to do what they do. As writers, we all know that our characters can develop their own quirks and do things that we, the author, certainly did not intend for them…
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….
Fiction Writing – The Elements of Plot
In fiction, the plot refers to the action that transpires during the course of the story. Together with the character and the setting, the plot makes up the body of your writing, craftily relayed by your own abilities with the help of your writing composition software. It’s the storyline, consisting of a deliberate series of…
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…
Troubled by Point of View? Particularly OMNI?
Ten times out of ten Omni doesn’t work and you’re left wondering why. “Omni is suppose to head-hop!” you cry.
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…
Writing a Traditional Mystery
So – you want to write a mystery? You don’t know too much about police procedures or regulations for private detectives or the law, but you enjoy settling in with a good mystery in which the bad guys are caught, and the good guys (and gals) win out in the end. Writing a mystery might…
Blogging a Novel
Sometimes, you just give in to peer pressure. I have always had the writing bug. However, I never pursued this endeavor until many family and friends said it is time to write a book. But, never really explored this “art” until October of 2008. That is when I started writing my novel, “Diary: Alone on…
Seven Mistakes That Will Get Your Novel Rejected
As a writing coach and book editor, I’ve seen too many novelists, with the very first line they write, destroy their chances of ever getting published. A good novel will grab the reader’s attention with its first words, create characters the reader wants to know, create a situation the character must resolve, create suspense, create…
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