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 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 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 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 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 Read more
There are several ways to get people to read your book. The title, cover art, and book review quotes are just a few ways to hook the readers. One of the best ways to get them to open the book Read more
If you’ve heard it before, you’re going to keep hearing it. Conflict makes a good story. But it can’t just be a simple problem. It should start as something wrong and snowball into a catastrophe by the climax of the Read more
There’s a theory that storytellers hypnotize their readers by the power of suggestion. I’ve never studied hypnosis, but I see the similarities and have put it on my list of topics to research further. In this post, we are going Read more
When you write a scene in your story, it can be hard to balance the description with the action. The readers need to be able to picture the setting and characters, but too much description can make the story feel Read more
This week I’ve learned some insider information about publishing houses: the hierarchy of authors and how to climb it. There seems to be six levels of authors in a publishing house: newbie, proven, midlist, lead, super lead, and apex. Let’s Read more