Category: Interesting Articles

Romance Webinar and What I took from it.

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Hello everyone,

I hope you’ve had a good week so far.

On Wednesday, 22/02, I (virtually) attended a webinar entitled ‘How to write Romance that Stands Out’ via Reedsy and hosted by Michelle Hazen (https://michellehazenbooks.com/). This was a really useful and informative webinar about how to approach writing a romance story and some tips about how to make it all pop off the page.

I’ve been thinking about writing a romance story for a while now, and this webinar has put me on the right track.

The webinar discussed providing three things to clarify a story; Make it Specific. Make it Personal. Make it Visual.

Following these main tips as you write your story can help it become more unique. And in a genre that has regularly been a top many a best-selling list, this could be crucial. The webinar also detailed 7 principles to follow as you are writing. These are:

  1. Meet Cute – How your characters meet and make it unique.
  2. Demonstration of Value – Show, don’t tell something about the love interest that makes them more attractive to the other.
  3. What are your readers expecting? – Give them what they want. Which, amongst other things, is that the two love interests get together at the end of the story.
  4. Flipping Stereotypes and Genre shortcuts – How to do things that don’t conform to usual stereotypes of shortcuts for the Romance genre.
  5. Time for date night – Think outside the box for what the character’s first date will be and how it happens.
  6. Mid-Book Reversal – Big change mid-way through the story that keeps things interesting. For example, the couple breaks up when one decides to make the decision thinking it’s best for the other.
  7. Grand Gesture – Make it personal, show time and effort, and something symbolic of the relationship.

For the entire webinar, please visit the following link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2D_DjKSLdFc&t=7s.

The main thing I took away from this was that to make your story stand out, it should be as unique and specific as possible. Say, instead of having the two main love interests meet on a date in a coffee shop or bar, how about they meet another way? By accident or on a rock-climbing holiday or when you, and they, least expect it?

These types of things happen all the time in real life. For example, you decide to do something slightly different on your lunch break from work and suddenly discover a new place to eat or a new route to walk. It’s a small example, but you get the point. Why not have your characters do something different to what you might do in their shoes and see what happens?  

Currently, my love interests meet in a coffee shop and bond over a common interest. Not until later do they realise they work in the same company and are not particularly fond of each other from a work perspective. I have already written a short story for this, and I’m excited to flesh out the details and see where it takes me. The webinar has helped me in that respect and will guide me until it’s done.

I’ll end with a question, how do you try and make your Romance Story unique?


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Pay-To-Play in Traditional Publishing, and Why We Need to Talk About It

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A few weeks ago, I was querying when I kept coming across agent after agent who was closed to submissions except from those who they’ve met at conferences. Below that, a list of conferences was provided, where a writer could go and purchase a ticket (often in the hundreds), and then an additional ticket to […]

Pay-To-Play in Traditional Publishing, and Why We Need to Talk About It

Hello,

The above was written by author Shannon A Thompson of shannonathompson.com. She is a young adult author, avid reader, and a habitual chatterbox. Represented by Clean Teen Publishing, she is the best-selling author of the Timely Death trilogy and the Bad Bloods series.

It’s a very interesting read and explores how Pay to Play Publishing is evolving and her advice regarding Querying. As always, insightful and thought provoking piece.

Click the link above for access to the full article.

Crafting Rich Characters (Part 1)

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Originally posted on Story Empire: Greetings to all the storytellers out there. Let me start out by first wishing you a peaceful Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Then by sharing how delighted I am to be part of the Story Empire crew. I never tire of chatting about the craft of writing and hope to…

Crafting Rich Characters (Part 1)

Hello everyone,

Interesting article about character creation. Some good points and things to consider.

Originally posted by storyempirecom.wordpress.com. This is via Chris the Story Reading Ape fine website.

Hope you enjoy it.

Lies, Secrets, and Scars Create Better Characters

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A simple character profile is flat. But his lies, secrets and scars create an emotional journey that turns your story into a book readers can’t put down.

Lies, Secrets, and Scars Create Better Characters

Hello,

This is a post I found interesting in relation to the morals, values, or other belief systems of characters that can make a story more of a gripping read.

This also discusses how to detail these areas within a story and how this can help drive the story along.

Hope you enjoy it and find it useful.

Does the Idea of Promoting Your Book Make You Feel Queasy? – by Lizbeth Meredith

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on Jane Friedman site: At every writer’s conference, I see fledgling authors roll up their sleeves when told well-established truths on writing: Writing is important. Make it a priority. Schedule time for writing every day, or as regularly as possible. But when they’re exhorted to market their books? Pearl clutch. While a small group of […]

Does the Idea of Promoting Your Book Make You Feel Queasy? – by Lizbeth Meredith

Hello everyone,

Interesting article about promoting your book and how important it is. Even as important as writing the book itself.

The link above takes you to another site, Chris the Story Reading Ape https://thestoryreadingapeblog.com/, which then has a link to the article. Although Chris’s blog is wonderful, if you want to skip that and go straight to the article, click here https://www.janefriedman.com/does-the-idea-of-promoting-your-book-make-you-feel-queasy/

11 Must-Have Instagram Apps for Writers – by Frances Caballo…

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on Social Media Just for Writers: With all the apps that exist do you know the 11 must-have Instagram apps for writers? I’ve made it easy for you by including the list right here. Being a content creator or an author on Instagram is a very intricate job. Apart from putting out content regularly, it […]

11 Must-Have Instagram Apps for Writers – by Frances Caballo…

Hello,

The article above is a very informative look at how some Instagram apps can help you manage and improve your posts on the photo and video sharing app.

Admittedly, I don’t use Instagram that often and I’ve recently taken a break from it as I was becoming more and more distracted and less and less productive. I did follow different writers and publishers who use Instagram to great effect. I hope to do so when I go back onto the platform in future.

This article gives a short description of apps that help with collating images, utilising captions, editing photos as well as apps offering free images and the ability to schedule times for posts when your followers are usually most active.

The original post was from the site https://socialmediajustforwriters.com/2020/01/20/11-must-have-instagram-apps-for-writers/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=11_must_have_instagram_apps_for_writers&utm_term=2020-01-20

But the blue link at the top of this post will give you a snap shot of it, so you don’t have to go to the full post straight away. Its all about options, you know.

I hope you find this useful. Have a good day and thanks for visiting.

12 Daily Habits of High-Achieving Writers

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2. Participating in creative activities outside of writing that keep your brain engaged and your heart happy.

12 Daily Habits of High-Achieving Writers

Hello,

Above is another useful post from Novelty Revisions (www.megdowell.com). It details a number of ways you can help yourself and your writing as well as things to consider along the way.

Click the blue link above for the full post.

I hope you find this useful and are having a good day.

Realisation and Reward.

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Hello,

Hope you are well.

Have you ever found yourself not enjoying the writing process? 

Throughout my time as a writer I have wrestled with this particular question and it has made me doubt if I should be a writer at all. I’ve tried to keep the above pushed to the back of my mind, but recently, I’ve come to terms with it.

I enjoy all the other parts of the writing and creation process. Well, those I’ve done so far (I’m unpublished). But sometimes when I sit down to continue with my WIP, I find it hard and not very enjoyable. Although, sometimes I’ll be writing an action scene or a tension-filled scene and rarely look up from the keyboard and I REALLY enjoy writing these types of scenes. In general, however, a more significant part of me just wants the story to be finished so I can edit it within an inch of its life and shape it into my final vision. 

What sparked this particular realisation was an article I recently read by Lorraine Mace (https://www.lorrainemace.com/) published in the June Addition of Writing Magazine. Entitled ‘Reluctant Writers Roundup’, she discusses how she and some of her writing friends sometimes don’t actually like the writing process. They have numerous notebooks and paper lying around with unfinished WIP’s contained within them and in one case, a novel that had been left unfinished on an author’s laptop for fifteen years! That, actually, is not far from the age of some of my unfinished work. I think I’ve got a story that is around ten years old that is incomplete. I need to rewrite the whole thing as my original story went off on a ramble down a country lane somewhere. It turned into one huge note taking and time-consuming exercise. No wonder I don’t want to go back to it.

This all made me remember those times I have sat down to write and felt like I was swimming in cement or that my brain just could not be bothered to help me out for whatever reason. I always managed to complete at least half a page in those times and what helped me was a reward at the end. This has helped me over the years to finish numerous stories. By allowing myself a small reward at the end, may it be playing on my favourite game for a short (to long) time or having a few biscuits or reading a few pages of my current book, it gives me that extra push to get things done. I finished a story last week (Awesome! Get In!) using this simple routine. I’ve carried on this routine through to other aspects of my writing journey (blogging mostly), so fingers crossed I can keep moving forward. 

Hope you have a good day! 

PODCAST shout out: DUST: Horizons.

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Hello,

Following years of half-baked attempts to find new music to enlighten my ears and mind, I decided to sign up to Spotify. Within a few weeks, I was given many top-quality suggestions for new music to listen to, and along with this, I looked into the other things Spotify has to offer, which includes Podcasts. There are so many I didn’t know where to start. Then, I remembered something that happened a few years ago.

….a few years ago I stumbled upon a Sci-Fi short films channel on YouTube called ‘DUST’ I watched one video, about a man who while photocopying documents finds a big Black Hole on an A3 piece of paper that allows him to use it as a portal into anything. As in, he sticks the piece of paper to the wall, walks through the black hole to the other side of the wall), and was instantly hooked. I watched a few more, but then somehow, I became unhooked and didn’t watch anymore. I decided to search for this on Spotify and found ‘DUST: Horzions’. This is the same DUST I found on YouTube but they are now presenting classic short stories from authors such as Philip K Dick and Ray Bradbury and new authors of Sci-Fi.

DUST

There are eight stories so far, with the longest being 45 mins, that range in darkness but are all really interesting. Each is unique and very compelling, with some having drops of humour along the way. As I listened to each one, they provided me with time to take in new Sci-Fi (Obviously) and reflect on my own work and how I could change some elements of the endings to my stories. Each ‘Dust:Horizons’ story has a logical end and, although it seems surprising and maybe shocking, makes sense when the story is looked at as a whole. Not one of the stories seemed to be throwing a twist in for no real reason. For impact rather than as part of the overall story, which is always good. Everything tied together at the end, in a sense, and then there were also numerous things to mull over afterwards. And I mulled — a lot.

The above all leads to a question; I know I’m probably late in arriving to Sci-Fi Podcasts but can anyone recommend any? And if they are available on Spotify?

 

 

What NOT to Say to a Literary Agent

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Hello,

I came across this very good and really informative article shared by theryanlanzs ‘A Writer’s Path’ (https://ryanlanz.com/) and originally written by https://katiemccoach.com/. Here’s a sample of the article and click the link below it for the full thing.

‘Recently, I attended a lecture hosted by GLAWS, and the guest speaker for the day was literary agent Steve Hutson. I’m sure you can guess the focus of the event.

What NOT to Say to a Literary Agent (or Editor)

I like attending events such as this because on top of the joy of meeting new writers, it’s always nice to hear advice directly from the pros–the ones who actually do this for a living.

Here are some takeaways from the event that I’d like to share with you. Some of these I’d consider obvious–like don’t pitch a book to an agent in the bathroom, or don’t tell them your mother loved it. But some of these might not be so obvious, or maybe you hadn’t thought about it in the agent’s/editor’s perspective before.

Either way, I want you to have the tools to succeed.

When we talk about editors here, it means acquisition editors in a publishing house, not a freelancer editor (aka moi).

https://wp.me/p4SsOO-pty