In preparation for this post, I read query letters until my brain went numb. I looked for the letters marked “successful” — those that garnered agent’s attention. After days of reading, certain constants emerged.
A successful query often includes a combo of:
One of the greatest strengths of novels is their ability to include the voices of a wide cast of characters.
However, if these characters speak different languages from the one you are writing in, you end up with a dilemma: How do you handle other languages within your fiction?
Young Adult novels, or YA, has been spiking in popularity.
According to Publisher’s Weekly, sales of Young Adult novels rose by 18.6% between 2020 and 2021 despite the pandemic.
Mystery fiction is a plot-driven genre. Because of this, both plot and character must be handled differently in mysteries than in literary fiction.
This does not mean that character—or any other element of fiction—can be neglected in a mystery story.
Revision is painful. When I sit down to revise, I find I would rather be doing anything else: scrubbing the toilet, doing taxes, scooping my own eyeballs out with a spoon — whatever.
Anything to avoid the act of revisiting the first draft.
NFTs are digital collectibles. If you remember collecting baseball cards when you were a kid, an NFT is a digital version of that card.
You can also have art NFTs, video NFTs, music NFTs, and, of course, book NFTs.
From Lord of the Rings to Star Wars, across sci-fi and fantasy, good worldbuilding is what makes genre fiction stand out.
Well-constructed worlds are legendary—they capture audience’s imaginations, and they make readers want to live in the story forever.
While science fiction is often set in the future, historical fiction is set in the distant past.
Just like sci-fi, historical fiction authors must develop genre-specific techniques to create stories set in a different time period.
I love podcasts for writers.
Why? Because I can learn about my favorite author’s writing process while I’m folding towels, and get great advice about creating characters while commuting.
Every writer has to know how to create suspense.
If you can’t create suspense in your book, readers will always feel shortchanged and indifferent to your story. Suspense is THE crucial technique to creating a riveting plot.