The entire course of a story or novel, like an avalanche, is largely defined within its first seconds. Jacob Appel offers 10 ways to launch yours in the right direction. Jacob M. Appel The sentence you are currently reading has the potential to brand itself indelibly upon our cultural consciousness and to alter the course …
Peter Cole Competent, effective, functional, engaging journalistic writing can be learnt, and some advice has been provided in this online series. Brilliant writing for newspapers has a plus factor which is hard to define and is not achieved by many. It comes down to style. Keith Waterhouse puts it this way: “What is this style? …
by Oliver Fox Have you ever tried to write a horror story and found the result wanting? In this post, we look at how the 3 pillars of horror can improve your horror story. It’s a difficult genre to do well. But why? All you have to do is create a monster and put it …
Highlights from 12 months of interviews with writers about their craft and the authors they love. Joe Fassler This year, I talked to nearly 50 different writers for the By Heart series, a weekly column about beloved quotes and cherished lines. Each author shared the life-changing, values-shaping passages that have helped sustain creative practice throughout …
Harry Bingham The all you need to know guide Getting a book published, even your first book – that sounds like it should be pretty do-able, right? And so it is, but the publishing industry is (inevitably) pretty complex, and can generate massively different outcomes depending on the choices you are about to make. In …
by Jane Friedman It’s probably the single most despised document you might be asked to prepare: the synopsis. The synopsis is sometimes required because an agent or publisher wants to see, from beginning to end, what happens in your story. Thus, the synopsis must convey a book’s entire narrative arc. It shows what happens and who changes, and it …
By Harry Guinness Writing is hard, but don’t overlook the difficulty — and the importance — of editing your own work before letting others see it. Here’s how. The secret to good writing is good editing. It’s what separates hastily written, randomly punctuated, incoherent rants from learned polemics and op-eds, and cringe-worthy fan fiction from …
By Jane Friedman If you want to get your book published, you have more choices than ever to accomplish your goal, and the path can be confusing if you’re new to the publishing industry. This post lays out the process in the simplest terms possible. There are three primary paths to getting published: Land a …
Eight Painless Tips Christina Park via Forbes Introverts tend to dread small talk. They worry that it will be boring, awkward, or that they’ll run out of things to say. But in today’s world, small talk is difficult to avoid. Cocktail parties, networking events, and even the line for coffee at work may require a …
