How to Know If Your Manuscript Is Ready to Submit
How do you know when your manuscript is ready to submit? Learn the revision steps, submission checklist, and common mistakes to avoid before sending your novel to an agent or publisher.
novel writing
Plot Part 6 – Endings
We’ve talked about the inciting incident, and the climax in our plotting process. Now it’s time to consider the ending. Endings can be tricky. Endings should be gratifying and fulfilling for your reader. After all, the reader has invested their time into reading your ENTIRE book and unhappy readers are not good for writers. Make … Read more
Outlining
It’s been a rough week for me to write regularly. What started out as floor repair is now floormageddon. My house has a Gothic horror show’s worth of dust in every nook and cranny as the contractor chips up concrete and repairs the subfloor. I am looking forward to getting back to my routine…all the … Read more
It’s Time for the Climax
The climax scene, that is. We’ve been thinking about scenes, and writing our novels in scenes, for some time as a way to improve all aspects of our books, and this week we will focus on the highest point of action and drama. First off, the climactic scene is the final turning point of action … Read more
Anatomy of a Scene
Writing Pensive Scenes This week we are continuing our exploration into writing scenes by looking at pensive scenes, or those scenes that explore the thoughts and feelings of our characters. These are not action scenes by any means. In fact pensive scenes slow the pacing of the story significantly, so they are used sparingly. … Read more
Anatomy of a Scene
Tension Happy New Year! For the last few months, I’ve been talking about writing your novel using scenes. Writing your novel one scene at a time will make you a more productive writer and a better writer. So let’s jump into it. We want our stories to have enough conflict and tension to keep the … Read more
More on Plot
I was contacted on social media yesterday by someone else with plot issues. Their story was episodic with no regular plot structure and their story also had no inciting incident. This means that the story had no specific beginning, middle or end, and the possibility that it will sell is slim. First of all, I … Read more