So you are writing your fiction book and you have a great idea that will make it better, maybe a plot twist or a character that does something to advance the plot. You add whatever it is and continue on your merry writing way. But here is the question: Did you lay the groundwork for […]
We have been caught in a contradiction. A reader has pointed out to us that in November, 2012, we praised author Erik Larson to the skies for the way he used teases in his book, IN THE GARDEN OF BEASTS, to create suspense and keep the reader turning the pages. Two weeks ago, we […]
During our recent vacation, we picked out Scott Anderson’s LAWRENCE IN ARABIA for vacation reading. This has been a hugely successful book. It is the story of Thomas Edward Lawrence, the Lawrence of the movie Lawrence of Arabia, who played a pivotal behind-the-scenes role in the Middle East. The book rollicked along from the points […]
Our clients love to make their characters smile. Maybe they believe as Phyllis Diller said that “a smile is a curve that sets everything straight.” In a book, it can be more of a flat line if a smile is the best the writer can come up with over and over again. In one book […]
If you think that realism is the goal when you are writing book dialogue, think again. How-are-you’s, thank-yous, you’re-welcomes, may-I-introduces should almost never appear in books although these are words most of us say every day. Neither should the word “well.” All these commonplace phrases just drag things down in books and can often be […]
If you have ever taken a writing course or read a blog about writing, you are familiar with the expression, “show don’t tell.” There is a reason for that. Showing is often the difference between a vivid, lively narrative and a lecture. Yet, almost every critique we write – fiction and nonfiction – includes an […]
Crime writer Elmore Leonard, who died last week, had such a strong writing voice that you can watch one of his movies or the current television show based on his work – Justified – and hear him loud and clear. Here is an excerpt from his 2012 book, Raylan, which shows his acute eye […]
One of the services we provide for our editing clients is to write query letters for them if they are interested in pursuing traditional publishing. As a result we have written a lot of queries. We have also reviewed a lot of drafts of queries and have seen the pitfalls that writers fall into. Agents […]
One of George Orwell’s rules for effective writing is “If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.” He had six rules which appeared in his 1946 essay, “Politics and the English Language.” As editors, we like this rule. We keep a close eye out for wordiness and In particular, we […]
We would bet that the characters in the novel you are writing or the people in your non-fiction book are as real to you as your neighbors and relatives. They may live in your mind, but they are three dimensional and capable of behaving in ways that sometimes surprise you. Writers often talk about characters […]