Congratulations on having a finished draft of your manuscript. The next step is editing the manuscript to the best of your abilities before you hand it off to a crit partner or editor. This is the essential checklist to get you started. Search for an unpack the following words: Thinks, Knows,…
No matter where you are in your editing career you need to know how to edit yourself. For the month of March the Writer Craft Wednesday posts will all be centered on how to edit your own work. Keep in mind that these are guidelines that have worked for me,…
Before we even tackle HOW to use social media let’s discuss the question really burning in your soul: Do I Need To Use Social Media? Straight Answer: NO. You do need a base of operation on the internet, you need a place where people can find you, but you don’t…
I’m writing this post with the hope that I can save some sweet, soon-to-be published author a headache because I didn’t know about this before I published. When I was first published I thought it was my job to write a story and – if a second book came along…
Voice is how your character (and you as the author) speak throughout a book. It’s part word choice and part personality with a dash of attention. Character Vocabulary + Character Personality + Character’s Interests +Authorial Voice = VOICE Vocabulary – each character has a different vocabulary. How much…
What do you need to have before you send out a query? THE BARE BONES Fiction – A finished, polished manuscript that is the best you can make it right now. A query letter. A full synopsis. Non-Fiction – A proposal and sample chapters of your work, a query letter,…
Originally this was written for Savvy Authors in 2013, and then Leslie brought it back November 16th because she was struggling with NaNo. Reading through it, I saw a few places where I could expand on ideas better, so here is the revised edition of Breaking Through Writer’s Block! …
Let’s practice a little visualization… You sit down in front of your computer today with 6,000 words written and the plan to write Chapter 3. You have your notes and your outlines. This is the perfect time of your writing day, and everything is how you need it to be…
QUERY(n) – the letter a hopeful author sends to an agent or editor with the express wish of getting the manuscript off their desk and onto someone else’s publication schedule. The query is an essential part of the publication process even for Indie Authors, it’s also one of the more misunderstood…
One of the first lessons a novelist learns is that writing a book is not like writing an essay in school. The dynamics are different. The time factors are different. The end results are different. The drafts are different. With an essay it’s common to finish a full draft of…