If you want to snag the attention of an agent, your book’s concept needs to be irresistible. But what’s going to buoy your book up above the other great concepts in the submission pile is the quality of your writing. And I don’t just mean polished writing. I mean writing that is unique and captivating. If you want to give…
Read More
The inciting incident in your novel is going to be the event, early in the story, that will interrupt life-as-we-know-it for your protagonist. In general, you might think of the inciting incident as the kick-off to the plot. It will present your character with a choice from which they cannot turn back. A commonly-used example of an inciting incident is…
Read More
In between some fiction writing and my usual blogging/guest-article writing, I’ve written some poems recently, which got me thinking: Prose writers, listen to me, your writing will improve (I promise) if you read poetry. And if you write it, it’s guaranteed. And now I’m thinking I really need to offer a class called Poetry for Prose Writers. Hmm… When you…
Read More
Real quick, before I get into strategies for writing a prologue, I want to address the whole prologue thing. Basically, agents like them or hate them. Readers love them or skip them. People have strong feelings about prologues and you should be aware of the general discussion before you publish a book with one or start sending out queries. So,…
Read More
If you’re just starting to submit to literary magazines, congratulations! This is an exciting time and you should be proud of yourself for doing the hard work of writing and the brave work of putting yourself out there for appraisal by strangers. It’s gutsy and worthwhile. I’ve mentioned before that I don’t think writers need to publish in literary journals…
Read More