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Five Great Quotations about Writing Process
“People on the outside think there’s something magical about writing, that you go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come down in the morning with a story, but it isn’t like that. You sit in back of the typewriter and you work, and that’s all there is to it.” – Harlan Ellison…
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Avoid Plot Error of Reader Cheating in Your Story
Sometimes authors, in the mistaken belief that they are creating a more exciting story, commit the error of reader cheating. This occurs when the reader has no reasonable opportunity to anticipate that some decision, realization or event will occur. Suppose in a fantasy novel that the main character uses magical abilities to resolve the story’s central…
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Strike conversational tone in nonfiction book
The most significant problem with nonfiction books that I edit is their tone – they are either a dry read or too preachy. By dry, I mean they stick solely to the facts and sound like an encyclopedia article. By preachy, I mean they come off as self-righteous. The tone of the former tends be flat…
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Create book club guide for your title
When promoting your book, you always should have a website, send out press releases to bloggers and mainstream media, and arrange book readings/signings to ensure the title is properly promoted. But those aren’t the only things you can do. In fact, they may not be enough. One marketing effort you might want to consider is creating…
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All in order: Follow up vs. follow-up vs. followup
Get the use of these words wrong, and an editor likely will have to follow up with the admonition to better proofread your writing next time. Follow-up with a hyphen can be used in two ways:• An adjective meaning “following an earlier event”: The reporter made a follow-up call to double check his facts.• A noun meaning “an event…
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Don’t Fully Commit Protagonist in Opening Scene
Typically when a story starts, there is an out-of-whack event, an upsetting of the status quo that the main character must deal with. How the main character addresses this event forms the bulk of the story’s plot. Sometimes, though, the main character is reluctant to act. That is, he is not fully committed to resolving the…
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Promote Your Book by Guest Blogging
A great way to promote your book is by guest blogging, which is writing, for free, content that appears on another person’s blog. It’s sort of like being a guest host of a television program. Most bloggers are more than happy to post your guest blog, as it reduces their workload and gets other readers (specifically…
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Writing Prompt: Observe Your Thoughts
Suffering from writer’s block or need to add some spunk to your writing? The problem may be that you need to change up your routine. To that end, try this tip: For 10 minutes, write down the thoughts going through your head. Then read what you wrote. Spend another 10 minutes writing down your observations about…
