May 2013
50 posts
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“Without character, you have nothing. Great plot? Robust storyworld? Potent...”
– Chuck Wendig (via easyreadingisdamnhardwriting)
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“I’ve been making a list of the things they don’t teach you at school. They don’t...”
– Neil Gaiman; The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones (via wordpainting)
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“She had a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach, like when you’re swimming...”
– Julia Gregson (via lacynical)
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Writability: How to Write a Great Twitter Pitch →
It’s that time again! We are just days away from yet another fantastic Twitter pitch contest, this one on May 28 from 8AM to 8PM EDT. You can find all the details, rules and extra tidbits here, as well as a post on why you should enter pitch contests here. That out of the way, on to the real meat of the post: Twitter pitches.
Your goal behind putting together a Twitter pitch should be to sum up...
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How I feel about my manuscript most days
title2come:
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Writability: Writing Tool: WorkFlowy →
So about a week ago, I came across this blog post on YA Stands about A Cool Way to Outline Your Novel. The post was a recommendation for a free online tool called WorkFlowy, and it sounded interesting so I decided to check it out.
The basic idea behind WorkFlowy is to imitate our thought process—you start off with one bullet point, then build off from it to create more points, and before you know...
“Its funny how sometimes the people you’d take a bullet for, are the ones behind...”
– Ritu Ghatourey (via creatingaquietmind)
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fishingboatproceeds:
the-blog-of-anne-frank:
I just realized that “pun intended” is a pun on “unintended” and I’m literally about to gouge my eyes out I’m so angry
This. Changes. Everything.
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QUERY CONTEST--One Sentence Pitch Letter
hsgagency:
Attention writers! If you have a manuscript you’d like us to read please send us a one sentence pitch of your novel. Include the genre as well as the age group it is written for (YA, Adult, Middle Grade, etc.) Make it tantalizing, exciting, representative of your work as a whole. Make us want to read your manuscript. Ends Friday May 24 at 5pm
Like, reblog, follow—get the word out!
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“The writer’s job is to turn the unspeakable into words — not just into any...”
– Anne Lamott (via ilivetowriteandinspire)
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Writability: Self-Publishing: It’s Not for... →
I have written nine manuscripts. Four of them I have attempted to get published—three of which will likely never see the light of day—and four will need massive, book-altering revisions to stand a chance. Whether or not those revisions will take place remains to be seen. Ten years ago, having nothing but a hard drive full of unpublished manuscripts and a dream wasn’t uncommon. Traditional...
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“Reading a book is like re-writing it for yourself. You bring to a novel,...”
– Angela Carter (via quotesandnonsense)
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ambassador-of-anguish:
shouldertappingghosts:
If I was a famous author I would publish a book with ten different endings which all went to print with varying degrees of rarity, but not tell the fans about it so that I could watch their confusion as they disagree over how the story ended. Then when they figured it out I would ‘come clean’, telling them that I had released eleven alternate...
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tumblr, I love you.
Don’t ever change.
No really. Don’t.
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goddammitfenton:
if you ever feel bad about yourself, just remember this one time in my english class, we were writing horror stories and one of the girls wrote “it was friday the 13th, the night before halloween” for her opening sentence
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How to write a book - Now Novel →
shannahmcgill:
Now Novel shows you how to write a book: a tailormade toolkit helps you find an idea, create structure and stay motivated while writing a book. Start right now!
Seems interesting.
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How to meet celebrities: Write a book that's good enough to become a movie.
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shannahmcgill:
Every scene should have at least one awesome, memorable part.
Every character should do at least one awesome, memorable thing.
If this isn’t true in your story, you may need to rewrite or delete certain scenes and characters.
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Writability: Discussion: Do Writers Need Social... →
remember reading this post by Nathan Bransford years ago on when you should start using social media. His post is actually what pushed me to take the plunge into Twitter and blogging, a decision that I couldn’t be happier with. Now that I’ve waded around the social media world for two years and written posts on the best social media sites and accounts for writers, I’ve started thinking: do...
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“But most days, if you’re aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose...”
– DAVID FOSTER WALLACE.
We never really know what is happening in another person’s life.
(via somethingchanged)
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Writability: Discussion: Do You Finish Every Novel... →
Confession time again: I have started several novels that I never finished. Considering I’ve often written about finishing your novelsand just getting the words down and worrying about the rest later, this may be a little surprising to some of you. But it’s true, and it’s something that I’m actually quite unashamed of. Most times, these starts are a false start of sorts—more of an exploration of...
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“Let me put this as delicately as I can: If you don’t read, your writing is going...”
– Kim Addonizio; Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within (via wordpainting)
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Five Traits to Contribute To An Epic Villian
prancingloon-rph:
Source: Antonio Drago
Read More
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Writability: Character Development: Write Gray... →
When I first began writing, I wrote characters who were black and white—good and evil—with little in-between. My antagonists were entirely villainous with few, if any, redeemable qualities. My protagonists were the essence of good and had little to be ashamed of. I had this thinking, I suppose, of pure good against pure evil, but what I didn’t realize is that people are rarely completely black or...
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John Green's tumblr: The Commencement Address →
fishingboatproceeds:
Some people have asked to read the commencement address I delivered this morning to the 2013 graduates of Butler University. So here it is.
My own commencement speaker, who shall remain nameless, began with a lame joke about how these speeches only come in two varieties: Short and bad. This…
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WriteWorld: Choosing the Right Name for Your Story →
agonyofanuntoldstory:
So what’s in a title? Is it really that important?
You bet it is. Would you rather your job resume say “salesperson” or “marketing representative”? “Clerk” or “service specialist”? “Repairman” or “technician”? One sounds commonplace; the other sounds impressive.
Let’s…
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“Well-read people are less likely to be evil.”
– The Slippery Slope by Lemony Snicket (via prettybooks)
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Writability: Writability Turns Two! →
Well it’s official, guys: Writability is two years old. The actual two-year date was on the 6th, but I was silly and forgot to check the calendar when working out my posts, so it’s a belated blogoversary celebration. Nevertheless, it’s somewhat incredible to me to think that I’ve been blogging for two years. I mean, I remember when the blog was a weird tan and red color and had a tiled book...
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Person: hey have you read any good books lately?
Me: are you ready for this conversation
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Writability: How to Avoid Writing Info-Dumps →
Easily one of the more difficult aspects of writing a novel is balancing explanation with prose. Giving readers enough information to understand the story without drowning them in particulars. In other words, explaining without info-dumping. The reason info-dumps can be so tricky to avoid is because it’s often difficult for writers to determine how much is too much, and oftentimes, in an effort to...
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Writability: 25 Helpful Writerly and Twitter Terms →
When you think about it, we writers have our own language. We have abbreviations and terms that make non-writers stare like you’re speaking Tagalog. Words that can sound intimidating to new writers jumping into the writing world. Words that writers throw around in everyday conversation, completely forgetting that not everyone will understand. I’ll admit I do it, too. And so I thought I’d put...
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WriteWorld: What To Do When You Have No Plot →
writingbox:
Sometimes you want to write, but you have no plot ideas. Perhaps your fingers are itchy to write, you want to meet a submissions deadline, a character is bugging you to tell their story, or a single image, phrase, or scene is sitting heavy in your head. But you still can’t find…
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Writability: Query Critiques: More Important Than... →
While I’ve written several times about the importance of having critique partners and getting your work (gently) ripped to shreds, it has occurred to me that we’ve yet to discuss another very important step to the critiquing process: getting your query letter looked at. Most writers are not enormous fans of the query letter writing stage—in fact, many writers have no problem admitting that it’s on...
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Question: Have you ever flinched from writing something horrible--do you ever think you've gone too far, made it too bad?
Every author on the panel: LOL, nope.
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“The character at the beginning isn’t worthy of the reward at the end of the...”
– Kelley Armstrong at RT13 (paraphrased) @kelleyarmstrong (via bethrevis)
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At RT13, part 2
Question from audience: If you choose to kill a main character, how do you choose which one to kill?
Carrie Ryan: You kill the one that will cause the reader the most pain.
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At RT13
Question: how do you get your character out of a bad situation?
Carrie Ryan: Sometimes you don't. Characters have to have sacrifices.
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My editor enjoying a break outside.
aliviaanders:
authorlife:
/sobs
this is me in a few days. have mercy, please…
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Writability: For YA Readers: Read These Now →
So I’ve been reading a lot, lately. While I haven’t written any book reviews in a while, I’d like to share with you some fantastic YA novels that I’ve had the pleasure of reading recently that more than deserve an enthusiastic recommendation. So, without further ado, and in no particular order, I give you three YA books that you really must read.
(click here for...
