A reader, editor, or agent often gives a first page three or four seconds before closing the book or tossing the submitted page onto the notorious slush pile. What do we have to squeeze into those few seconds? We have to grab the reader’s interest immediately, usually with writing something active not passive. Ground the […]
Writing Tips from Authors Cara Black, Laurie King, and Penny Warner
My previous post told about the three panelists at one of the San Francisco Writers Conference sessions I attended this year.The authors spoke about “Heroes & Villains: Building Compelling Characters for Crime Fiction.” The following are some notes I wrote from what each of them and the moderator, Kate Chynoweth, said. Penny Warner said she […]
Penny Sansevieri
Penny Sansevieri spoke at the San Francisco Writers Conference. I went to three of her sessions. She is the Founder and CEO of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., and a widely recognized book marketing and media relations expert. She is the author of fourteen books including How to Sell Your Books by the Truckload on Amazon […]
Solve Writer’s Block and the Sagging Middle of a Novel
My previous post told how I was stuck in the sagging middle of my novel. I didn’t know how to get back into the rhythm after three months of writing Ekphrasis prose and poetry due the end of December. I’d imagined several ways to begin Chapter 15 and didn’t like any of the options. For […]
Writing the Sagging Middle of a Novel
In my previous novels (three sitting in the drawer, finished but unpublished), I didn’t worry about sagging middles. Aware of that syndrome from hearing other writers talk about it, I amped up the drama in the middle. No problem. In Norman in the Painting, my present WIP, I stopped writing the novel at the point […]
Story Ideas Come and Could Go
Katherine Mansfield, a prominent modernist writer of short fiction, wrote, “It’s always a kind of race to get in as much as one can before it disappears.” She was referring to a story idea that arrives and needs to be written down. It’s best not to think about it too much. Writing allows things to […]
Smiles in Sophie Littlefield’s The Missing Place
I’m reading Sophie Littlefield’s latest novel, The Missing Place. Colleen and Shay, the mothers whose two sons are missing, have frequent disagreements due to their different backgrounds. Littlefield contrasts these characters in a realistic, sometimes humorous, way. On page 69, they argue outside about how to proceed with searching for their sons. Shay gives in […]