In past blogs, we have stressed how important it is to find a reader for your writing work. A more or less objective eye can help delineate the flaws and the brilliance in your work. But we have also said that the only person who really knows what is right for your work is you. […]
One of the most challenging aspects of writing a novel or memoir is fitting in background information the reader needs to know without slowing down the story. If the story is a 3,000-meter race, than anytime you have to digress to explain a piece of back story, you are taking a detour. It slows the […]
We get a sinking feeling whenever a client or prospective client talks about submitting her/his manuscript to the book club before sending it to us for review. What makes us tremble is the prospect of having to sort out a book written by committee, going every which way and not really adding up to anything. […]
Writing a memoir is more than regurgitating everything you can remember about your life. In fact, regurgitation is sure to result in a big mess, a whole lot of words tossed all over the place. Unless you are such a well-known person that readers are interested when you sneeze because you have developed allergies or […]
One of the quirky things about the first drafts of novels we see is that they are often full of characters, who start things and never seem to finish them. We are always reading about Character X, who “began to wash the dishes” or Character Y, “who began to close the windows.” There is often […]
Fiction or non-fiction, your goal as a writer should be to write in scenes, whole, round rooms that readers can step into and experience what is happening there. You have to build that room or place by establishing where it is and what it looks like, its smells, the feelings hanging in the air. Next, […]
When our authors go off to self-publish their ebooks, we sometimes feel as if we are releasing innocents to the world. Some of them have not even thought about promoting their books. And they must, because books don’t leap into bestsellerdom. They have to be promoted. This piece is aimed at ebook authors but it […]
While most authors would kill for a deal with a major publishing house, Hugh Howey actually thumbed his nose at offers from publishers. (That distant roar you hear is writers everywhere, cheering.) Howey first published his postapocalyptic thriller WOOL as an e book on Amazon, charging ninety-nine cents for each of the series’s five parts. […]
We got a call on the office phone recently asking for the “imperial commander.” There are only two of us and we operate as partners so we’re not much on titles. This request is one of a lot of strange queries we’ve gotten lately, mostly by e mail, that have nothing to do with book […]
Like just about everyone else in America this winter, we have been watching Downton Abbey, mourning over the death of Sybil, relieved at the release of Mr. Bates, and simply loving the dowager countess played by Maggie Smith for every slight lift of her eyebrow. But we also view Downton as a guilty pleasure, one […]