I’m on a ten-day Christmas break from the day job over here at WriteGoodBooks-land, so that means ten days of staying up late getting as much writing and writing related stuff done as I can, so that I can close out the new year on a high note. So after finding places for all the […]
Don’t distract your readers with terrible character names
Coming up with names for your characters is easy, right? Just to hit one of those random name generator sites like Seventh Sanctum and you’re done. Of course it’s not like that at all. A name generator site is a good first start, but what goes into picking the names of the inhabitants of your […]
Your writing is your business. Treat it that way.
Here’s the thing. If you’re a writer and you hope to become a successful writer, then you need to view your writing as a business. I know, I’ve said that before, but this time I’m not talking about all the businessy things you need to do as a writer. This time I’m talking about how […]
Four Ways NOT Start Your Novel
It seems that every expert, agent, editor, publisher, and successful author agrees that you should never begin a novel with a prologue. I’ve personally had an agent tell me that she’ll reject a manuscript on the first word, if that word is prologue. So, yeah, there is a lot of hate out there for the […]
Five Clutter-Free Gifts For Writers
Every year around now, we start seeing posts on gift ideas for whatever the topic of the blog you’re reading. “25 gift ideas for a handyman.” “25 gift ideas for elementary teachers” “25 gift ideas for a librarian”. You get the point. Since I visit a lot of writing sites, I see tons of these […]
333 Query Letters. Every Day.
A while back, an agent I follow on Twitter said something that had me flipping my lid. She casually mentioned that she had received over 20,000 queries so far this year. That’s 20-THOUSAND. With a T. I was like, well, if she takes on, say, twenty new clients this year, I would have pretty good […]
About those pesky modifiers…
The popular mantra in the world of fiction writing is pretty much this: Never ever use an adverb ever. While I’m certainly no fan of these dangerous little modifying words, I’m not sure why they are considered by many to be the words of the devil himself. Perhaps it has something to do with Stephen […]
The Key is to Bring Empathy to Your Characters
I’ve always said that it doesn’t matter how beautiful your prose is, how tight your plot is, or how detailed your setting is, if you can’t get a reader to care about your story. And for me as a reader, the most important thing a writer can do to make me care is to make […]
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