Some books draw the reader right in, like a host at an open doorway, and quickly become very hard to put down. Others, not so much. I analyzed two books I find riveting. (While both books had romance stories embedded, neither of these books is in the typical romance genre.) What did the openings of […]
Five ways to compel the reader into your book
Writers, let’s say you’ve got a great plot, characters that learn and change, and so much more. But the book isn’t attracting fans. What could be wrong? Perhaps you need to take a good look at the bonding moment between reader and main character in the first few paragraphs of your book. Is there something […]
Three low-cost ways to know when your manuscript is “ready”
If you’ve been in the book business any length of time, you’ve seen a manuscript that isn’t ready. It’s not that it couldn’t be whipped into shape. But in its current form, any editor will say “no.” Many new authors don’t know what readiness looks like. They want to submit their work because they’ve finished […]
Writers, more tips for your first page
New writers are often tempted to explain everything at the beginning of a book. It seems to make sense. The reader will want to know where the protagonist comes from, what makes him tick, and so on. So why not just tell him, up front? The problem is that the reader doesn’t care yet about […]
Writers: That all important first page …
Have you compared the beginning of a current published book with one that’s forty or fifty years old? One of the things that might jump out at you is that stories nowadays start off, like movies do, with someone in the middle of something. In writer-craft speak, that’s using the technique called “in media res,” […]
Four elements that every flash fiction story needs
Sick of writing your novel? Sure, I may be biased since I run Splickety Magazine, a flash fiction publication dedicated to showcasing the country’s best quick fic with kick, but we all know how difficult it can be to finish a novel. The solution? Write some flash fiction (a short story 1,000 words or less). […]