As a mostly pantser who desperately wanted to be a plotter, outlines have long been my nemesis. I was so envious of people who would just know a whole story upfront without going through the trouble of writing the whole thing wrong multiple times. But after nearly 5 years of warring with outlines, I finally… Continue reading Outlines Are Lighthouses, Not Destinations
Beginnings are hard because there are so many elements to introduce. You have to consider character dynamics, point of view, pacing, world building, voice, narrative flow–and it’s incredibly hard to figure out how to balance all those aspects in a cohesive, clear, and engaging manner. While there’s no easy formula to crafting the perfect beginning,… Continue reading 3 Questions To Ask Yourself For A Stronger First Chapter
We’ve written about pacing before and specifically pacing with multiple POV books, but today we wanted to talk about something a little different though it goes in hand with pacing: tension. This post is cowritten with Ashley Burdin. What is tension anyway? There’s an interview between Francois Truffaut and Alfred Hitchcock that we love where… Continue reading Building Tension in Stories
I know my first drafts are messy. As hard as it can be to accept, I know that no matter how much time I spend brainstorming or outlining, until I have that draft written, I don’t fully know how the story is going to turn out or how to fix it. But writing that first… Continue reading Writing A First Draft After Revising Forever
I’m so excited to have Mai K. Nguyen join us on the blog today! Mai’s an awesome writer, illustrator, and fun fact: one of my childhood besties! Her debut graphic novel PILU OF THE WOODS released last April from Oni Press, and I’m so thrilled to be chatting with her today! Hi Mai!! I’m a… Continue reading Artist Spotlight: Mai K. Nguyen
We are often asked how we cultivated and maintain such a “large” critique group. When we started out, most of us didn’t have agents or book deals. As the years have gone on, many of us have moved on to different stages in our publishing careers. But given that we all have very different experiences… Continue reading Tips to maintain a totally rad writer group (& how to set boundaries)
Through our Pub Life posts, Writer’s Block Party will be hosting guests and contributors who talk about their jobs within the publishing industry. There are many more career paths in publishing than a lot of people realize, and we’re so excited to spotlight a few of them for you guys! Today, we’re super excited to… Continue reading Pub Life #6: Publicity
My favorite part of starting a new project is getting to write new characters. Usually I go in already knowing what POV (or POVs, since most books I write have multiple) the book will be told from. But recently, as I started to brainstorm a new idea, I realized I was trying to choose between… Continue reading Picking The Right POV
For the longest time, pacing was my craft nemesis. I would write books that were basically all beginning, with a rushed middle, and then they would just END. And I could tell something was totally off about my structure, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to fix it. It took… Continue reading Tips for Writing a Well Paced Book
There’s no one single way to write a query. The point of a query is to entice people to read your book. And just like no one book is going to be like another, no one query is going to read like another. And as hard as it is to write a query in general,… Continue reading Writing Queries for Multiple POV Books
