Motivation It’s been a few weeks but we are back! We are continuing our discussion of the topic of scene writing as a way to break down your novel into manageable chunks, and to consider each scene as an individual piece of the whole, but to also incorporate all the necessary elements into each scene … Read more
How long? I expect that some of you will be pissed off at me by the end of this post. I am okay with that. Not because I want you to be pissed off at me, but because I want you to be the best writer you can be. Recently, over coffee with a fabulous … Read more
Introduction Scenes are the visual building blocks of the novel in which your characters live (very much like theater productions and movies). Scenes placed one after another make chapters. Multiple chapters tied together make novels. You might consider writing your novel using the scene and sequel technique (see Scene and Sequel posted September 2, 2015) … Read more
One category of novel that has been generally out of vogue because of low sales is western fiction. Sales increased by 7% in 2014 but are still low overall. If you write westerns, you write for a niche market, but readers of westerns are die hard for the genre, and if they like you, they … Read more
I was chatting with fantasy author Carol Berg earlier today. I asked her about issues that new fantasy writers have. The thing I see new fantasy writers do a lot is spend so much thought on world building that they ignore adding any depth or logic to their characters. When I am critiquing for writers … Read more
I was scrolling through a Twitter pitch fest a while back where I favorited pitches I liked. If I favorited the tweeted pitches, then the authors knew to send me their pages. There are several of these pitch parties on Twitter, including #PitMad* and #Pit2Pub*. My point, though, is if you scroll through the pitches, … Read more
This week I’d thought we’d focus on crime fiction. In case you are not familiar, crime fiction is that genre category that fictionalises crime on some level. If you are thinking about writing crime fiction here are some stats to help with your decision. We will discuss techniques on a later post. Miscellaneous goodies: In … Read more
e We’ve been talking about the romance genre over the last couple of weeks. Romance is the hottest selling genre of any the mass market fiction category, which means that if you are an established writer of romance, chances are you are doing very well for yourself. But how do you break into becoming a … Read more
As we saw last week, the romance genre is big business. If you want to break into the romance genre then it is a good idea to know the general tropes. You goal is to write a novel that will meet your readers’ expectations. Remember that romance readers are very knowledgeable. They are also a … Read more
We’re focusing on the romance genre this week. If you write urban fantasy or another genre, don’t be dismayed. Ideally, there are things you can glean for yourself even in a discussion about the romance genre. Miscellaneous goodies: In 2013, romance sales were $1.08 billion The audience for romance is 84% female, 16% male Romance … Read more