I like writing children’s chapter books. They allow the writer more freedom than picture books or early readers, but they’re not as involved as middle-grade or young adult books. The children’s chapter book is just right—at least to me. I’m currently working in three different genres: picture book, chapter book, and a young adult. And,…
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Get Your Self-Published Book Into Libraries – 6 Must-Know Tips
Have you wished you could have your book in the library system? How thrilling would it be to have someone borrow your book from your local library? For a long while this was only possible for traditionally published books. But that’s no longer the case. I read a great article at Jane Friedman’s site about…
Tips on Polishing Your Novel
Contributed by Linda Wilson, Children’s Author You’ve finished your book. All the major edits and rewrites are done. Now it’s time to polish. Polishing includes the obvious edits, including making sure the story elements are present, verbs are active, every chapter moves the story forward, etc. Fiction Short List: – Does the beginning draw you…
Writing – Do Not Worry About Failures
“Don’t worry about failures; worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try.” Jack Canfield had a dream. He and co-author Mark Victor Hansen, both motivational speakers, compiled true inspirational stories from people in their audiences. They put these stories in a manuscript, called it Chicken Soup for the Soul, and sent it…
What Do Fiction Writing and Film Editing Have in Common?
I read an interesting article on editing. Well, not just editing, but how to do it effectively. Did you know that in “Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola filmed and edited thousands and thousands of feet of film. Mental Floss puts the footage at 1.5 million feet.” (1) So, why did Coppola take so much footage?…
Learning to Love Passive Construction
Contributed by Carolyn Howard-Johnson Writers of fiction are often told to avoid passive sentences. Nonfiction writers sometimes get the same advice. The reasons for such admonitions are many. After all, they tend to tug on the forward momentum we are usually after. But passive construction can be used effectively, too. When we sense that there…
A Writer’s Bucket and Mop List
Contributed by Linda Wilson Do you have as much time as you want to write? I don’t. The first thing I want to do when I get up in the morning is write. But there are so many other things to do. Often I don’t sit down to do it until nighttime when the dishes…
Selling Middle Grade
In my last post, Writing Middle Grade, I wrote about a webinar I attended through Writer’s Digest. It was presented by literary agent Andrea Somberg and focused on writing and selling middle grade (MG). The first article is about writing MG. This article is about selling MG manuscripts. To sell your manuscript, the manuscript itself…
Writing Middle Grade
In a Writer’s Digest webinar with literary agent Andrea Somberg discussed the basics of writing and selling middle grade (MG). The first thing to start with is that the agent made it clear that while MG was popular over the last decade, it’s now slowing down. Publishers are now much more picky about these manuscripts….
Written a Picture Book? Are Illustrations or Layout Next?
I read an interesting article from a self-publishing service (1106 Design). The article explains that the best way to produce a children’s picture book is to create the interior layout before getting the illustrations done. This is something I hadn’t thought of. But it makes so much sense. I write a lot of stories for…