Writers need to know lots of background info on their characters, but what actually makes it into a manuscript should be pretty minimal and essential to the story. However, I believe that some well-placed backstory can deepen our understanding of a character’s actions because we know those actions are partly motivated by something in the [...]
My agent got back to me the other day with comments about the tween novel I’ve been working on. As usual, she had all sorts of wise things to say about it which made me rethink several elements in the story. One of those is the main character’s age. Right now she’s 14 and a [...]
Nancy Lamb has a great chapter on plot in The Writer’s Guide to Crafting Stories for Children which I use with my writing classes. As I was re-reading the chapter last night, something new stood out to me. (I find that often happens when I reread craft books–something jumps out at me that’s relevant to [...]
As I mentioned on Friday, my contract for My Un-Fairy Tale Life came the other day. Yay! But Anna, you might be saying, didn’t your book sell over the summer? Why yes, it did. But as you may have noticed, things tend to move a tad slowly in the publishing world. I’ve heard of authors [...]
I don’t think I’ve ever done a Friday Five before, probably because I don’t usually have five mildly interesting things to say. But since this week has just been crazy, a list of tidbits pretty much reflects my state of mind. So let’s do it, my first ever Friday Five! 1. I’ve been doing a [...]
Not long after I got the offer from Sourcebooks for My Un-Fairy Tale Life, I was told it would have a September 2011 release date. Right away September became my favorite month. What’s not to love about September, after all? The weather is still nice and there’s the back-to-school buzz in the air. Yes, September [...]
I guess it’s odd for me to be doing a WIP update since I’m not actively working on anything at the moment. I’m waiting on some feedback on a project, and I think my brain is still too much in it to switch over to anything else. But because I’ve been fairly consistent with writing [...]
As hard as it can be sometimes, writing shouldn’t be torture. That’s not to say it’s easy. There will be times when you’re frustrated and just want to give up. But ultimately, there should be something about the project that excites you, something that keeps you going. If you’ve lost that sense of excitement, take [...]
Last night, while I was trying to catch up on some non-writing things, a line of dialogue popped into my head. I jotted the line down, and it turned into a scene between two characters. As I wrote, I got a sense of their personalities and a little bit about their unusual setting. And that’s [...]
The other day I was going through a box of books from my childhood and trying to find places for them on my bookshelves. As cheesy as it sounds, when I was taking the books out one by one, it was like I was seeing old friends again. The feelings I’d had when I’d read [...]
