Writing

Since we’ve been on this topic of Showing vs. Telling, I wanted to highlight an important tool at your disposal when you’re working on “showing.” Ironically, it’s called the Telling Detail. The Telling Detail is a word, phrase, or image that helps the reader “see” what you’re describing. It must be precise and illuminating, and…

I want to talk a little bit more about this all-important aspect of writing, which is crucial to understand in both fiction and non-fiction writing. One of the great things about the written word, as opposed to the dramatic arts like theater, movies and television, is that we have the freedom to “tell” the audience…

Thanks to all of you who entered the Show vs. Tell contest! I was impressed with the entries and can see everyone really working on “showing” in their writing. If you want to tell us about your experience with this exercise, leave a comment here. Was it harder than you thought it would be? Did…

I mentioned last week that I’m trying to write more posts for the intermediate or published author… and I’ve decided I’m also going to try and include more posts about craft. You know, the actual process and technique of writing. So today I want to talk about self-editing. Specifically: cutting. One of the things I’ve…

I spent the last several days at the ACFW conference in Minneapolis (along with about 600 of my closest friends) and once again my overriding feeling is… I’m tired. I’m sure everyone who went is feeling the same thing. It was terrific meeting lots of my blog readers and I’m glad many of you made…

It seems the biggest concern many of you have about this business is the difficulty of making the leap from being an unpublished novelist to being published. This comes out in all kinds of worries, like this one from Courtney:They say it’s very rare for a [new writer] to land an agent, let alone sell…

Yesterday we had some discussion in the blog comments about craft, or writing technique, vs. having a great story. Obviously, the formula for a good book includes both. Craft refers to all the mechanics of fiction: plot, characterization, dialogue, pacing, flow, scene-crafting, dramatic structure, point-of-view, etc. Story refers to the page-turning factor: how compelling is…

Yesterday I gave you some tips for making a great pitch at a conference. But as blog reader Karen pointed out, we agents and editors could use some tips, too. So tell us… what would make you more comfortable pitching to us at a conference? What do you need to hear from us? And let’s…

Before we get to today’s Q4U, I just want to say thanks once again to all of my faithful blog readers. You’re awesome! I spent the week trying to answer reader questions and as usual, YOU addressed them better than I ever could. That’s the great thing about this little community we’ve got here. I…

I’ve seen lots of published novels that read like they were written by committee. This doesn’t surprise me, because those immature in the craft (or just with less gift/ability, whatever you want to call it), DO write their novels by committee. Over a very long period of time, they take so many good suggestions that…

As a follow up to what I wrote last week about getting away from your computer and getting to a bookstore… today I want to simply say this: Read. Yes, it’s that simple: You gotta read books! You hear it all the time. As writers, we need to first be readers. I know most of…

The question of “how long your manuscript should be” is sometimes hard to answer because different publishers have different guidelines. I’m going to give you some information here, but first I want you to know WHY this is important. It’s pretty simple: If your book falls within the standard preferred word-count range, it’s one less…