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Jun 13, 2021 · How to write your debut novel, according to Penguin authors. Charlie Mackesy, Bonnie Garmus, Caleb Azumah Nelson and more on the most useful piece of writing advice they’ve ever been given, to help aspiring authors get started. 14 June 2021. Karl Tapales / Moment via Getty Images.
- Be patient.
- Check Your Ego. Turn The Lens on yourself.
- Stay positive. Your Reputation Starts now.
- The Act of Writing Is The Best Way to Learn to Write.
- Get Feedback.
- You Make Your Money with The Editing.
- Beware Too Much backstory.
- Read in Genre.
- Be A Perpetual Student of The Craft
- Never Permanently Delete Your work.
I put this one first, because it’s the hardest lesson to learn. Publishing time is different than normal time. We’re talking dinosaur time. Geologic time. Everything stretches. And I mean, everything. My debut novel took two years to write and edit. My search for an agent and signing with her took another year after that (which I’ve since learned i...
A literary agent at a Pitch Slam event once told me point blank, “I can’t sell this.” Period. Next person in line? Sure, it hurt to hear that . . . but it wasn’t the first time I’d received that feedback. So, after massaging my bruised ego, I turned the lens on myself. What was I doing wrong? Turns out, I wasn’t presenting my manuscript correctly. ...
During your publishing journey, you might be tempted to lash out in public forums, especially when you’ve been rejected, when you’re frustrated. Don’t. It’s a big publishing world, but at the same time, not so big. If you’re spewing vitriol on Facebook or elsewhere about why the entire publishing universe is colluding against you, it won’t help. In...
Seems obvious, but we can get off track. We read articles and books and take classes and so forth on how to be better writers—and this is good—but all of these must come second to actually writing. As I mentioned before, I wrote four novels before I wrote HOVER. And all the while, I was learning, getting a little better at it each time. You learn b...
You must do this. Ideally, it’s better if the critiques are not from friends and family, who might withhold needed constructive criticism, because they don’t want to hurt your feelings. Try a writing group instead. Or your book club. Or a professional editor. Just someone else. Someone that is not youneeds to lay their eyes on your work.
In the hands of a capable editor, your work will be elevated, one, two, three, four notches higher. Just be ready to spend a lotof time here. And while we’re on the subject, I guess I’ll add this. Remember, everyone who is critiquing you, as you prepare your manuscript, is on your side. They’re helpingyou. Sometimes it might not feel that way, and ...
A common new-author mistake. Remember how I said I went back and peeked at novel number one? Actually, I did more than just peek. I read it again—all 161,000 words of it (yes, I know, but you have to give me some slack because it wasepic fantasy). I realized—to my horror—that I had written 65,000 words of backstory. Yep, my magnificent epic fantasy...
My literary agent preaches reading 2,000 words in genre for every 2,000 words written. Like asking for feedback, like doing proper editing, you must do this. You learn by writing, but you also learn by reading. What are the “rules” for your genre? If you’re a romance author, you’d better know the rules, because they’re quite a bit different from th...
Read these books: (1) Stephen King’s On Writing, (2) Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, (3) James Scott Bell’s Plot and Structure and also Revision and Self-Editing for Publication, and (4) Writing the Breakout Novelby Donald Maas. There are more, but these will get you started. And hear this now! You are never done with your writing education. There is a...
Save everything. If you’ve ditched an idea or killed a chapter or whatever, save it somewhere. [Like this quote? Click here to Tweet and share it!] You’ll be surprised how many times you come back to it—maybe for another project years later—but it will be there. In writing my second book under contract, I was 40K words in, when I realized I was wri...
- Know what makes writing series different. Writing a series is different to writing a standalone book for a number of reasons: Series have multi-novel continuity (this separates a book series from a book cycle) – characters and/or settings, and/or conflicts return.
- Choose a central conflict that sustains interest in your series. From Louise Penny’s Chief Inspector Gamache mystery series to Rowling’s fantasy epic Harry Potter, intriguing series have conflicts and characters whose development span multiple books.
- Create a fictional world readers will long to return to. Readers of Rowling’s fantasy series are eager to return to her fictional world because: It is rich in imaginative detail: Rowling thinks of every detail, from how bank vaults are guarded (by dragons) to the woods used to make magical wands and their properties.
- Outline your series in advance. If you tend not to plot usually, this can work for a novel. When you write a novel series, however, an outline is especially useful, as it helps you retain a bird’s eye view.
- Keep the backstory detailed but open-ended enough to give yourself maneuverability. For example, Brodie is an American born in Japan to American parents, an art dealer with a struggling antiques shop in San Francisco, and half-owner of a security firm built by his father in Tokyo.
- But you shouldn’t give too many extended details about the backstory. Backstory, by nature, slows a story down, so for that reason alone it should be parsed out in drips over time.
- Make your character attractive to both male and female readers. (Unless you’re working in a genre that zeroes in on one over the other.)
- Avoid common character clichés. If your hero is a spy, steer away from the melancholy, burned-out agent, or the slick, overly smooth operator. If your protagonist is a private investigator, avoid the recovering alcoholic trope (it’s been done hundreds of times), or the lady’s man with an ex-wife or two.
- Find your Central Idea. Every great series grew from the kernel of an idea. J.K. Rowling, for example, famously said that the idea for her wildly successful Harry Potter series formed while stuck on a delayed train between Manchester and King’s Cross, London in 1990.
- Find key plot points for each book in your series. When you’re still learning how to plot a series it’s easy to get lost in details. It’s hard to see the big picture when there isn’t one – yet.
- List ideas for your series’ end goal. Each book will ideally reach a smaller goal within your series broader arc. Yet unfinished business keeps readers coming back for more.
- Decide on the broad setting of your series. The entire arc of your series could take place in the space of 24-hours (like the TV series 24), with each book showing a different character’s overlapping experience of these 24 hours.
Jun 24, 2020 · If you hope to write a book and get it traditionally published, one option is to write for an established publishing franchise, like Wiley’s “For Dummies” series. If you’re a fast writer and are ready to follow the series format and instructions carefully, it’s one of the quickest ways to get yourself into print.
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Debutantes Series by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. 2 primary works • 2 total works. Book 1. Little White Lies. by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. 3.85 · 23,647 Ratings · 2,771 Reviews · published 2018 · 2 editions. "I'm not saying this is Sawyer's fault," the prim … Want to Read. Rate it: Book 2. Deadly Little Scandals. by Jennifer Lynn Barnes.
