In this post, when I say scene, I’m not referring to a setting but to part of a sequence of events. A scene in a book is marked by breaks. These can be a chapter break or just a line break. These symbolize a jump in the story to a Read more…
I wanted to title this post All The Little Pesky Things You Have To Do When Running A Business That You Don’t Think About Until You Do It, but I thought that title would be too long. That’s the essence of this week’s post though. I’m sure, as I get Read more…
Last week I shared about my process to register a LLC, and this week I will cover three more steps to take once you are officially a business owner. These will allow you to do financial transactions, and they are super easy. This is advice for those living in the Read more…
You have a finished book, and you’re ready to pitch it to agents or publish it yourself. Congrats! But before you do that, you may need to think about finances and how you want to get paid. You can sell it yourself, but that opens you up to possible lawsuits Read more…
This is the full version of the story. If you would like to read the shorter version that won 1st place in a local writing competition, click here and scroll to the bottom of the post. Despite what you’ve heard, I don’t enjoy preying on the young and hopeful. But Read more…
I’ve heard it said several times by professionals that the final draft of your book should be at least 10% shorter than your first draft. This happens because you cut out the excess—both in scenes and in words. It may seem daunting, but, in my experience, it’s more tedious than Read more…
As writers, we use foils all the time in our writing without realizing it. A foil is when you put opposites close together in order to make one stand out more. I’ve heard that the term comes from jewelers who placed a piece of foil under a gem to make Read more…
I’ve covered the aspects and tips of writing book blurbs for readers, and now I want to give a little advice for composing synopses for editors and agents. These professionals will need more than just an emotional reaction to your story. If you’re trying to pitch to them for the Read more…
When I decided to become an author, I took the warnings very seriously. I would get thousands of rejection letters. It would take years to find an agent willing to take my first book. Publishing one book didn’t mean I would be a successful full-time writer. When I had several Read more…
As I mentioned last week, the point of the book blurb is to elicit an emotional reaction and make people want to read more. We already talked about the five main parts of a blurb, and this week I want to focus on tips to strengthen the reader’s emotional response. Read more…