Over the past few weeks, I’ve had more than one conversation about the pros and cons of featuring college-aged protagonists in YA. I’ve heard agents and editors say that having a YA character in college is a tough sell, that there isn’t much of a market for it. That’s why writers are often told that [...]
Over the weekend I watched The Proposal, mostly because I love Sandra Bullock and I was in the mood for something light and fluffy. As far as rom coms go, it was pretty typical. But as I was watching (and thinking about my WIP revision) I realized there were two very important lessons to be [...]
I know there are a lot of revision checklists out there, but since everyone revises a bit differently, I thought I’d add my own to the mix. While there are lots of smaller things to think about during revision (language, dialogue, etc.) I’m listing the top three things I address in revision, with examples from [...]
I’m almost finished reading The Fire in Fiction by Donald Maass, and I think his chapter on tension is one every writer should read. Tension is what keeps us turning the pages. It can come from a variety of things, but as Maass points out, one of the most effective ways of creating tension is [...]
Today I wanted to talk about fairy tale retellings, especially since that’s what I’ve been focusing on in my writing recently. Right now I’m about halfway through reading Ash, a retelling of Cinderella by Malinda Lo. I’m really enjoying the story and the writing is lovely. As I’ve been reading, I’ve been thinking about the [...]
One of the things that makes speculative fiction so fascinating is setting. Often you want to give the reader a sense of the setting right away, but how can you do that without boring her? Well, as I was reading Dark Life by Kat Falls yesterday, I realized she does this very well. First off, [...]
In a recent post on Children’s Writing and Illustrating, David Caruba shared some of his “State of the Children’s Book Publishing Industry” presentation from this year’s NJ-SCBWI conference. There was lots of great info there, but what really stood out to me was his report on the middle grade market. Middle grade stories remain strong, [...]
So did you watch “Lost” last night? I’m still processing it, but it did make me want to talk about endings. While I was watching the incredibly long finale, I thought back to what Marla Frazee said at the SCBWI conference: “Endings should disarm us. They should be satisfying and mysterious at the same time.” [...]
I’ve been having great luck with books recently (Before I Fall, Incarceron, Mistwood) but for a while I was in a serious reading dry spell. I’d pick up book after book and not get more than a few chapters in. After reflecting on all those books I couldn’t get through, I’ve come up with a [...]
I just finished reading Catherine Fisher’s Incarceron yesterday and can’t stop thinking about what a great story it was. Of course, when a book stays with me like that, I try to analyze what exactly worked about it. I think in the case of Incarceron, it was the story’s fascinating (but not off-putting) complexity and [...]
