|
| |
 |
ArticleBot V1.0: Submit Your Articles to More Than 400
Top Of The Line Article
Directories Completely
On Autopilot For Massive Backlinks...
HOT!Requires: Windows |
|
We’ve talked about how the opening of a novel—both the beginning line, and the first chapter—works to hook your reader. So now you have a sensational start, and you’re speeding into your story, full steam ahead. So far, so great!
While thinking in terms of novel development playing out in three acts, now let’s discuss the opening act of your drama.
Usually this is the easiest for writers to effect. Creativity is soaring (or you wouldn’t be sitting there writing in the first place), your...
•MaloneEditorial.com: Who Are These People? Knowing Your Characters
I talk a lot about characterization. A whole lot. Because characters drive your story, and without a great protagonist (and hopefully, small supporting cast), your reader has no one to root for; no one with whom to catch a ride and travel the course of the novel. And without that, you have no book—no matter how compelling the story.
Every story has to be someone’s. If Earth blew up and neither you nor anyone you knew and loved were on it, would you care? Would you even know? But if a friend...
•MaloneEditorial.com: Structure And The Novel--The First 50 Pages
We talked before about a novel’s opening line, and how important getting it just right is.
So, now let’s say you’ve written that bang up first line, and now let’s focus on the rest of the book’s beginning—the first fifty pages.
Isn’t that just the hardest part? I hear from so many writers struggling with where to start, how much to convey up front, and how active page one needs to be, etc., etc. And the answers vary—a lot. Depending upon in what genre you’re writing, for one thing. A...
•MaloneEditorial.com: 5 Most-Important Writer’s Resolutions
The New Year has arrived, and with it, gazillions of resolutions. Writerly ones included, of course! I get tons of emails this time of year from folks recommitting to their book writing goals, which is a great thing. The love of the written word, and how we all connect with it, always warms my heart.
But like dieting resolutions, scaling back a hair will help you successfully meet them. So, let’s put our writing resolutions on a diet, so that we can put our power behind making our dreams...
•MaloneEditorial.com: Shaping A Book
I often say that books are more than the sum of their words. A real book is an entire entity—plot, organization, characterization, style, including all of the subheads for each one. Circling all of these things is the entire forest—the shape of the book. All of those elements comprise it, and, paradoxically, more.
You can excel in all areas of writing, and still not wind up with a good or publishable piece. And when you don’t, provided you did indeed accomplish all your goals in the other...
•MaloneEditorial.com: Writing Your Memoir
Ever since Angela’s Ashes hit the scene (some sixteen years ago), the Memoir genre has been hot. And I get a lot of them, especially in this day of POD and e-books, where self-publishing is so easy, and so inexpensive. But one’s life story, no matter how tangled with twists and turns, how fraught with trials and tribulations, does not necessarily make for a compelling memoir. The genre itself is about something different.
Now, a disclaimer here: If you’re already a famous celebrity, then...
•MaloneEditorial.com: Breaking The Rules
days has precious little to do with anything actually literary). Rules, however, govern the craft, to the chagrin of novice writers. “I just want to write,” and, “The rules take away my creativity,” or, “But so and so book author does this all the time!” And on and on. Writers give as many reasons for not learning writing’s rules, as there are rules to begin with.
But they exist for a reason. And that reason is truly not to satisfy grammar and composition teachers, but to help the writer...
•MaloneEditorial.com: 3 Steps To The Perfect Query
Misconceptions abound about what a real query should be. The agents and editors I know don’t want to be ‘wowed.’ Nor do they want to be bored to tears. Humor can help, but only if it’s not forced and most importantly, if such prose holds true in the course of the text.
The point is, one wants to know why you think she might be the right agent, or why he’s the right editor at the right publishing house for your book. They want to know what the book is about. And finally, they want to...
•MaloneEditorial.com: Writing For The Spiritual Market
The last decade or so, we’ve seen a huge surge in spiritually based books. They’ve sold so well (both fiction and non) that most of the big houses have some sort of spiritual imprint, running the gamut from Christian Fiction to Buddhist texts to New-Age works a la Hay House, etc. I’ve seen a host of such manuscripts. Many of these come from counselors of a wide variety; many are scholarly; some from writers on a spiritual path. The majority of these have things in common: either they beat you...
•MaloneEditorial.com: A Writer’s Style
We talk a lot in this business about a writer’s ‘style,’ and often that’s an elusive issue. Not one’s voice, exactly, although style incorporates voice, and not the technical aspects such as sentence structure and word usage, syntax, although those, too come under that heading. So what, exactly, IS style?
In essence, it includes the entire spectrum of the elements of writing. One can write in a minimalist style and still pen a ‘Big’ book. Think Hemingway, though it’s in vogue these days to...
•MaloneEditorial.com: Slaying Writing Demons
Writing is a convoluted and intensely psychological process. Even those who say it comes easy and/or don't want to deal with all that mental 'mumbo jumbo' get caught in the same psychological traps as the rest of us. Anything that originates from the heart, the gut, the inner recesses of the human mind by its very nature cannot be easily contained or controlled. Oh, we can learn to work with our muses. Even tame them, in some cases (the Strength card in the Tarot comes to mind). But control...
•MaloneEditorial.com: Making Sense Of Editing In Today’s Market
All writers need good editors. Even successfully published authors need “outside eyes” to help perfect their work (and many more understand this than do unpublished folks). Once upon a time, a writer would work with her book editor at a publishing house to make the book the best it could be, and to further the author’s career as a writer. Well, Dorothy, that was before the tornado blew through town.
The business has changed. Radically. With POD and e-books, now you can whip something off of...
|
|