You and Your Ugly Baby
I was working on a scene yesterday that somehow felt flabby. The prose itself was fine, but I realized that the underlying action, what was happening in the scene, just felt bleh. So I had to reimagine the scene, searching for ways to make it fresh. I wanted my novel to be novel, one of […]
Do What You Love
Years ago, I had a reporter call and ask, “If you could have any job in the world, what would it be?” The only answer I had was, “I’d just keep on being a writer.” Since it was Career Day, the reporter wrote an article in which he posed that question to dozens of people. As […]
Appealing to the Senses, Part 2
Last week I wrote about appealing to the senses and stated that humans have more than just the five sensory inputs that you learned in school. Any time that you use a human viewpoint character as a “camera,” you need to use all of the senses, and input the character’s thoughts and feelings as well, […]
Time to Get Serious
A lot of people “play” at writing. We tend to think of it as a hobby or a pastime. But I sometimes wonder how much great art is really created by those who don’t take their work seriously. I wonder how serious Mozart really was about his music, or how dedicated Rembrandt was to his […]
Writing a Bestselling Series, Chapter 20
I began writing this series because I talk to literally thousands of people each year who want to embark on writing a series, yet have very little understanding of how to go about it. They don’t know that there are pitfalls to avoid, and so they fall into pits. Nor do they understand the unique strengths to […]
Who Should Greenlight What Gets Published Or Consumed?
For today’s writing tip, I asked if I could repost a blog article by Brian Feinblum from the BookMarketingBuzzBlog. I read it Sunday, and I think Brian really nailed it. Thanks Brian. If you look at the entertainment industry, you realize how often mistakes are made in deciding which content should get green-lighted, from movies, television shows, […]
How Good is Your Agent?
Every day on my Facebook page or in my emails, I hear authors proudly proclaim, “I’ve been approached by a literary agent!” in tremendous excitement, and my first question is “Which one?” Now, there are some great agents out there. One of my clients was approached by a superstar just yesterday. But then there are […]
The Perfect Story: Balance
I’ve been talking about some of the attributes that I would look for in a perfect story, whether it be a novel, movie, or short story. In particular, I’ve been discussing some of the attributes that a story should have that novice writers might not think about when they begin to compose. One I’d like […]
Artistry
It seems that in the past few weeks I’ve heard from a lot of people who want to write so that they can get rich quickly, and I worry about them. I don’t begrudge people the desire to get rich. If you’re a writer and you make a decent wage at it, it will give […]
Writing a Bestselling Series, Chapter 19: All Good Things Must come to an End
There is a saying among writers: “When you write a book, the first words of the novel will sell that novel, but the last words in the novel will sell the next.” In other words, a powerful novel will make your reputation, will cause people to remember your name, so that with future books, the […]