Author N. Gemini Sasson at the My Dog Ate My Manuscript blog pointed me toward a fantastic website for indie authors whose creator, another author named April Hamilton, is going through some difficult times and could use all the help she can get.
Gemi does a much better job at explaining than I could, so go check out her piece.
And now, for a small example of how dry bones literary research can be stewed up into something that conveys setting, exposes character, and teases the reader with the first hints of plot.
First I will show the original citation from an early 19th century legal reference, and then show how the information made its way into a pre-industrial noir.
One of my favorite writing blogs, Juliette Wade‘s cleverly named Talk To YoUniverse, served up a bit of dialogue advice on Saturday that I missed while out with friends. Finally playing catch-up today, I decided I have to share it.
Although Talk is largely a science fiction blog, Juliette’s advice on dialogue is genre-neutral. She uses examples of rewritten dialogue, showing before and after, to demonstrate that a character’s words can carry much more information than you might think. A tweak here, a shuffle there, and a simple declarative statement can accomplish amazing things!
procraftinate /pro-kræf-ti-neit/ v. – to put off writing and sending query letters to literary agents so one can continue researching, writing, and rewriting fiction.
An assertion we often read on book trade blogs is that the process of selecting a book for representation and publication is subjective. I have to confess that this idea raises major red flags for me, not necessarily as an author, but as writing professional who has worked as both a writer and an editor.
It’s been a while since I made the rounds of the literary blogs, but this morning I happened upon a spot-on critique of publishers’ strange, throw-away attitude toward their own product, books. As the author of the critique, Jane Dystel of Dystel & Goderich, explains:
If the book doesn’t “take off” in its first few weeks, the publisher literally abandons it and moves on to the next one.
(I am assuming there was no pun intended…)
Jane’s suggestion for reform is, I think, one of the wisest and most professional I have seen since publishing began its Internet Age navel-gazing a few years ago.
RE-POST BY REQUEST
While working out the larger story arc behind the novel I’m pitching, I thought it might be fun to blog a little about writing itself, as I experience it. Sort of telling the story behind telling the story.
I have written a lot of stuff over the years: tons of (mostly bad) poetry, a handful of short stories, and hundreds of thousands of words of non-fiction prose.
But, for this little series on writing I want to focus on The Ligan of the Disomus, and the larger world that is still growing from its seed. It is now a novel, with three sequel novels outlined for the long-term story arc.
When it began, however, it was just a short story assignment in a college writers’ group. It grew into a novel later because neither the fictional narrator nor his fictional setting would stop talking after the assignment was complete…
REPOST BY REQUEST
While working out the larger story arc behind the novel I’m pitching, I thought it might be fun to blog a little about writing itself, as I experience it. Sort of telling the story behind telling the story.
I have written a lot of stuff over the years: tons of (mostly bad) poetry, a handful of short stories, and hundreds of thousands of words of non-fiction prose.
But, for this little series on writing I want to focus on The Ligan of the Disomus, and the larger world that is still growing from its seed. It is now a novel, with three sequel novels outlined for the long-term story arc.
When it began, however, it was just a short story assignment in a college writers’ group, an assignment the narrator — a fictional character — ran off with in directions I had not anticipated. But, he was not alone in commandeering what I considered to be “my” story…
Stories that are in the submission process will be password protected. Apologies.
If you are eager to read something based on the title, genre, and graphic please email johnnelsonleith at gmail and I may share the password.
