For this post, let’s break down a well known romance plot to see where the story beats are going. This is an exercise I’d really recommend for authors of any genre. Take your favorite story, or movie, and break it down to see how they made everything work. You’ll be surprised how much it helps you break down your own story! And yes, this is the movie I’m turning into plot points, but it still translates to novel form. Beauty…
Welcome to the first Insecure Writer’s Group post of the year for me. Somehow January scarpered, and here we are in the first post for February. If you’re thinking of joining the group yourself, let me reassure you that once a month posts really aren’t as difficult as I’m making it look. Come join us! This month the kind co-hosts keeping us all on track are Jacqui Murray, Ronel Janse van Vuuren, Pat Garcia, and Gwen Gardner! Our optional question for this month is…
*Sings* Do you want to write a romance? If you do, you’re in good company. Millions of books printed and sold every year (and probably hundreds of millions of Ebooks downloaded. I haven’t done the research, but I’m feeling pretty confident with that guess.) Thousands of authors. HUGE part of the publishing market share. But . . . where to start? How is a romance different from any other fiction novel? What defines “romance”? At the basic level: A romance…
Agent querying has been what I would humbly term an “Epic Fail”. A solid year of querying the latest finished manuscript has netted exactly zero interested replies. And each publisher accepting un-agented manuscripts replied to my submission with an email which basically said “not for us, but if you do write something else—something, y’know, better—we would love to see it. Take care. Bye.” I’m still not willing to give up, though. This manuscript made it to the finals of an…
Or; Thoughts I have while working on the 2nd/3rd/multiple draft
The stages of accepting constructive criticism, as told through gifs. We all can agree that beta reading is crucial to the success of a story. Having other eyeballs touch your story, pre-publication, is one of the necessary steps a book goes through. Whether it’s a kind friend who volunteers, a writing group, or a professional editor — the link goes to a good post by author D.E. Haggerty on why she uses editors vs. beta readers — you will be…
This is the final Author Toolbox post for 2020 because we take November and December off (HOLIDAYS!). But don’t worry, you haven’t missed us. You can always sign up on Raimey Gallant’s website and catch us when we start posting again in January, 2021. For the last Author Toolbox post of 2020 I’d like to share with you three years of my experience in submitting. I love writing short stories. I also love submitting them to magazines, anthologies, and websites…
This is an author toolbox blog post. The toolbox is a group of authors who come together to learn, share resources, and grow. Non-author friends who are in publishing are also welcome to join in. We’re going on three years strong now! Come check our group out and see what you think. In this day and age authors have to put ourselves out there, hanging weightless in cyberspace with multiple tentacles dangling into the ether. We need a platform. We’ve…
Dialogue Tags vs. Action Beats: The Great Showdown
We function best with comfy, secluded, darkened spaces. In a house, there was a writing cave. Inside that writing cave, there was a desk. At that desk, there was an author and an empty notebook. Under that desk, there was a blanket fort, and in that blanket fort there was . . . a writer’s block. See? It just works. 2. Random screams into the void have high probability. Also we’ll hiss at our Word program, to assert dominance, after…