Monthly Archives: September 2010

Helpful sites, Just for fun, Picture Books, Queries, Writing skills and techniques

Helpful Writing Sites and Blog Posts – September 2010 Edition

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The end of the month is here, so it’s time for my monthly round-up of helpful writing sites and blog posts.

The Writing Process

Stories That Cross Borders and Boundaries

Tips for writing multicultural fiction.

Keeping Pace: Maintaining Momentum in Fiction

This article is based on a session from Aussiecon4. An in-depth look at creating effective pacing in your novel.

Fixing Character Errors

Heather McCorkle offers a few tips and tricks for keeping track of you character details so you don’t end up with inconsistencies.

5 Ways to Make Your Novel Unforgettable

Editor A. Victoria Mixon lists the main elements of getting to the climax of your novel in an engaging and unforgettable way.

The Worst Mistake A Writer Can Make

I know this is something I’m guilty of doing. I sit hunched over at my computer for hours at a time and I wonder why I get a sore back and neck. This is a post all writers should read and remember. Some great advice for those of us who spend a lot of time writing at our computers.

Picture Books

The Top 3 Considerations and Top 3 Pitfalls of Children’s Picture Books

Although this post is primarily aimed at those self-publishing picture books, there are some valid points in this post for all picture book writers to consider.

Writing Picture Books

A great an in-depth overview on the various elements that go into writing a picture book. I love the diagram included at the end.

Word Counts for Picture Books

Casey McCormick has compiled a post on appropriate word counts for picture books based on her knowledge as an agent intern and research (she lists her sources at the end of the post if you want to check them out).

Query Shark #178

It’s nice to see some posts on writing pb queries starting to surface around the web. When I wrote my post on pb queries a while back there weren’t many posts specifically relating to pb queries at all. Thank-you Query Shark for ripping apart a pb query this month!

Picture Book Queries

Kidlit agent Mary Kole has also posted on pb queries this month. She describes how pb queries need to be simple and gives an example. (Where were these insightful posts two months ago when I was writing my pb query?)

Pitching

How to Write a Logline

A short simple post on how to craft a logline for your novel.

Writing a Logline/The One-Sentence Pitch

This post goes a little more in-depth into writing a logline. It sets out the elements of a hook line and gives examples.

Social Media

Should Writers Talk About Their Rejections

A post tackling the issue of how much a writer should share of their rejections on social media.

10 Ways to Create a Better ‘About Page’ for Your Blog

If a publisher or agent comes across your blog and checks out your ‘About Page’ you want to present yourself in the most effective way possible. This post tells you how you can do just that.

Just for Fun

How to Write a Novel

A funny (and embarrassingly true) look at the journey of a writer.

Against Promotional Author Photographs

I laughed when I read this post as I recognised all the ‘author poses’ listed. As well as being a funny look at the typical ‘author pose’, it also made me determined to make sure I come up with something original when I do my own ‘author pose’ one day!

There’s a bit of a focus on picture books this month, but hopefully there is something here for writers from all genres/stages of writing.

Writing skills and techniques

Writing Compelling Characters

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Harry Potter and Hermione Granger

Compelling means to evoke interest, attention or admiration and that’s exactly what you want your characters to do when writing a story, whether it be a novel or a picture book. You want your character to be interesting to the reader, no one wants to read about a boring character. You want your character to grab the reader’s attention, you don’t want your reader’s attention to wander to what they are going to be cooking for dinner tomorrow night because your character has failed to grab their attention. So how can you write a compelling character?

Bring Your Character to Life

Your characters should come across as real people, fully developed with hopes, desires and flaws. A flat 2D character is not going to keep your readers glued to the page and they certainly won’t care what is going to happen to that cardboard cutout character. Some ways you can create a more realistic character:

1. Write up a character bio, including their flaws and strengths.

2. Do character interviews, ask in-depth questions that will show personality.

3. Do a character collage, cut out pictures from magazines that represent your character.

You can do all this before you start writing to have a good picture of your character in your head before you start, or do it before editing if you prefer. You don’t have to include every detail from your character bio in your story, but having it there will help form the character in your mind.

Bridget Jones

Get Inside Your Character’s Head

This applies even if you’re writing in third person. As you write, imagine yourself in your character’s position.

What would you do if you were your character?

How would your character react to certain situations?

How does your character experience the world around him/her?

This is connected to making your character realistic, but it involves delving even deeper into your character’s psyche. You want your reader to not only see your character as a real person, but to be able to connect with your character on a personal level. You want your reader to experience the same emotions as your character. By stepping into your character’s shoes as you write, the character comes across as more personal and there is a better chance your reader will find themselves inside your character’s head too.

Give Your Character a Goal

Give your character something they want to achieve and show why they want it so badly. Give them obstacles along the way to achieving the goal, make it hard for them and allow them to fail at first (there’s nothing less compelling than a character who achieves things too easily or without consequence). Your character’s goal may change along the way, and that’s OK as long as it makes sense.

Ellie Linton (Tomorrow When The War Began)

For more ideas on how to write a compelling character check out Elana Johnson’s post ‘How to Write Compelling Characters‘ where you can find links to a variety of blogs blogging on this topic.

Uncategorized

Peevbody Award Thank-you

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During last week’s blogiversary celebrations I received a lovely surprise from Carrie Bailey (Peevish Penman) who also celebrated her blogiversary that day. I was honoured to receive the first ever Peevbody Award. This is the description Carrie gives of the Peevbody Award on her blog (full description found here):

An award for friends of writers that is grander than grand. This award commemorates bravery and true blue friendship in a writer’s career.  New writers put their egos on the line and risk everything to share their art and craft, but somewhere all the line they receive encouragement. The caption of this reads in the old latin:

“one less peevish writer“
Why? because support makes us happy.  It makes us believe in ourselves, our ability, and our craft. Whether a best friend, family member, agent, publisher, or anyone, it will be awarded once a month by Peevish Penman…

And this is what Carrie said on her blog about why she awarded me the Peevbody (full post on Peevish Penman):

I want to send out the biggest thanks and appreciation for the ever awesome Jo Hart for making our blogiversary special by collaborating with us on the contest, designing the header, and just simply being an awesome writer friend.  For this reason, Peevish Penman sends the first Peevbody award to Jo for all around writer awesomeness.

I just wanted to take the opportunity to say a big thank-you to Carrie for thinking of me for this award. I really enjoyed collaborating with Peevish Penman for the blogiversary contest.

I also want to say a big thank-you to everyone who helped make my first blogiversary special by dropping by, commenting and tweeting about it. I had an awesome first blogiversary!

Contest

Blogiversary Celebrations: Part Four – Contest Winners!

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I know some of you have been waiting for this all day. The time has come to announce Peevish Penman’s and my joint blogiversary contest winners!

CONGRATULATIONS TO:

Jessica (@jsubject)

Lisa. B. (@LisaMBasso)

and Monica B.W.

The three winners each receive a five-page critique from both Carrie and myself. If the three winners could please e-mail Carrie at  bzuley(at)yahoo(dot)com or me at thegracefuldoe(at)hotmail(dot)com we can organise your critiques.

Thank-you to everyone who entered and helped spread the word about the contest.

And thank-you to everyone for helping me celebrate my blog’s 1st birthday today. I’m looking forward to another year of blogging and writing. 🙂

Contest, Interview, Writing skills and techniques

Blogiversary Celebrations: Part Three – Interview with Agent Intern C.A. Marshall

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I would like to welcome special guest, and winner of the Best Agent Intern Site award, Cassandra Marshall to my blog. Cassandra has kindly agreed to answer some questions for me to share with you.

As a writer, what have you learnt through being an editor and an agent intern that you now apply to your writing?

Each activity helps the other. I can use what I see in the queries pile to help write my own query so it stands out (and I have four full requests in two weeks to prove it! Yay!) and if I see mistakes over and over again in a clients MS, I’ll check my own for those mistakes too. It’s like the quote, “It takes a village to raise a child” except it’s more like, “It takes a writing community to write a book.” The more you learn and then share what you learn, the better for all of us.
(GD: Congratulations on the full requests!)

As an editor, what is the most common mistake you see when editing a manuscript?

Not capturing a specific voice. Teens using outdated slang or phrases, characters that are formulaic and cliche, stuff like that. The more you read in your genre, the better you will be at distinguishing voice.

Do you have any tips for writers who might be in the process of revising their manuscripts?

Save your changes. Use “track changes” if you edit in Word. Save the bits you cut out in another file. You never know if a revision means that you could use a scene you’ve already written and you’ll be sad that you got rid of it. Or it’s also possible for those scenes inspire more books.

What is the best piece of advice you have for aspiring authors?

Read. Read as much as you can in your genre to figure out what does and does not work. Read submission guidelines for each agent/publisher and follow them exactly. Read agent and fellow writer blogs and become part of the community.

Thanks for having me Jo!

C.A. Marshall is a freelance editor, lit agent intern, YA writer, and loves to play with her dog Mollie. She dreams of one day owning a small house near the water, preferably in England, with a shelf full of books she has written and has helped others to write. She can be found in Emmett, MI and at camarshall.com

Be sure to check out the Free Edit Contest on Cassandra’s blog. One lucky person will win a FREE substantial edit for up to 100K words.

Thanks so much for being here, Cassandra!

(P.S. To all those waiting for the results of the Graceful Doe and Peevish Penman’s blogiversary contest, the winners will be announced in the next post. Not long now!)

Contest, Helpful sites, Just for fun

Blogiversary Celebrations: Part Two – Award Ceremony

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Welcome to the first ever The Graceful Doe Blogiversary Award Ceremony! It’s nice to see everyone dressed in their finest.  Now that everyone is seated let the award ceremony begin.

Over the past year I have visited numerous sites on writing, querying, etc. Many of those sites and posts have contained lots of great information and some of those great sites and posts I have shared on my blog. The awards to be presented today go to those who I have kept returning to over and over again, who give great advice or tips to writers, and who are just all around fabulous people.

Just over a year ago I discovered how much the internet had to offer aspiring authors. At that time I had decided to get serious about writing a novel and found a lot of great sites with information just right for the helping me begin my serious writing journey. So the first award is the Best Site for New Writers award. This award goes to a site offering helpful advice to those writers who may just be starting out. A site that covers the writing basics, such as writing effective dialogue and character building, in an easy to understand approach. This award goes to…

Barry Lyga’s blog barrylyga.com

For those who don’t know, the majority of my writing falls into the category of kid lit, that is, writing aimed at children and teens. As a result, I read a lot of blogs and posts relating to kid lit. This next award is for the Best Site for Kid Lit Writers. This award is for a site that covers the various aspects of writing picture books, chapter books, middle grade and young adult, giving writers of kid lit great advice to help improve their writing and querying. This award goes to…

Mary Kole’s blog kidlit.com

Query writing is something many writers agonise over, which is why it’s great that there are so many insightful blogs and websites out there offering advice. This next award is for the Best Query Advice Site. It’s for a site dedicated to helping writers write effective queries. With her brutal honesty and dedication to helping writers get their queries right, this award goes to…

The Query Shark (aka Janet Reid) at queryshark.blogspot.com

In the past year I have come across some of the loveliest literary agents. They are willing to take time to tweet and blog about querying and writing for the benefit of writers to help them along their journey towards publication. The Best Agent Site award is for a blog or website of a literary agent that offers advice and encouragement to aspiring authors. And the award goes to…

Rachelle Gardner and her blog cba-ramblings.blogspot.com

And as many lovely agents as there are about, there are just as many lovely agent interns. From tweeting about the query pile to blogging helpful hints for writers, agent interns are a great resource for aspiring authors. The award for Best Agent Intern Site is for a blog offering advice to writers, including not just advice on query letters, but other aspects of writing too. This award goes to…

Cassandra Marshall’s blog www.camarshall.com

Still on the topic of agents, anyone who follows the #queries hashtag or #askagent hashtag (or any similar hashtags) on Twitter knows that there are agents and agent interns out there giving great advice to writers on Twitter. I have a long list of agents and agent interns I follow on Twitter and all of them are only too willing to help out aspiring authors. I just had to include an award for the Best Agent to Follow on Twitter. This award is for an agent on Twitter who regularly tweets valuable advice to writers. The award goes to…

Natalie Fischer @Natalie_Fischer

There are a lot of great Twitter chats for writers. There are chats to discuss the craft of writing, writing genres, querying and a multitude of other topics. I considered doing an award for the best writer chat, but then I had another idea. Instead this award is for the Friendliest Writer Chat. This award is for a chat where you are bound to meet the friendliest writers around, who are always willing to offer support to their fellow writers and are only to happy to share links and resources with each other. The award goes to the very friendly…

#pblitchat (run by two lovely ladies known on Twitter as @KarenCollum and @KatApel)

Writer forums offer great support for writers. Apart from offering a way to connect with fellow writers, these forums are places where you can have your writing or queries critiqued, find out information about the writing industry, or, if you are really lucky, even find an agent for your book. The award for Best Writer Forum goes to a site that offers all these things as well as supporting and encouraging emerging writers. The award goes to…

YA Lit Chat at yalitchat.ning.com

And now we get to a couple of more personal awards. Critique groups and critique partners help writers see plot holes, character flaws and poor word choice a writer may have overlooked. They read a manuscipt with fresh eyes, reading it how a reader would read and understand the story without the bias the writer him/herself have, yet at the same time because they are writers themselves they can also look at the manuscript and tell the writer not just that something isn’t working, but why it isn’t working. This past few months I have been swapping chapters with a critique partner and I think she is deserving of the award for Awesome Critique Partner. The award goes to…

Beth Hull (you can find her blog here)

The last award today goes to someone who I’ve been collaborating with the past couple of weeks to bring you all a 5 page critique contest, someone who is also celebrating her 1st blogiversary today. The award for Best Blogiversary Buddy goes to…

Peevish Penman (aka Carrie Bailey – find her blog here)

And that concludes The Graceful Doe’s first ever Blogiversary Award Ceremony.

More blogiversary celebrations still to come (including the winners of the blogiversary contest).

Biography, Contest, Currently writing, Just for fun, Novel progress, Picture Books

Blogiversary Celebrations: Part One – A Reflection

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Wow! I can’t believe one year ago today I made the very first post on this blog. I started this blog with the intention of sharing my writing journey with others, as well as sharing information and helpful links I found along the way. The blog has changed appearance in the course of the year (a new header, new theme, handy page links at the top and a cute little Twitter link), but the intention has always stayed the same.

By far the most popular posts I make are the ‘Helpful Website and Blog Post’ editions I post once a month, compiling all the helpful sites and writing information I’ve come across in the past month. (Look out for an award ceremony later today where I’ll be awarding some of my favourite sites of the past year.)

Lots has happened along my writing journey. I finished my YA novel and I’m currently in the last stages of tweaking it. My picture book story ‘Can You Jump Like a Kangaroo‘ came third in the Smories 2nd International Short Story Competition. My short story ‘Waiting on the Docks‘ was featured on The Australian Literature Review website. And I’ve met so many fantastic and supportive fellow writers through chats, forums and Twitter.

A big thank-you and lots of love to all those who follow my blog or even just visit occasionally.

xxx

PS Stay tuned, I will be posting throughout the day. I have lots of exciting things planned. And don’t forget the contest for 3 people to win a 5-page critique from both Peevish Penman and myself ends today, but if you’re quick you can still enter: Blogiversary Contest Details

PPS Don’t forget to pop over and wish a Happy Blogiversary to Peevish Penman too: Peevish Penman. Happy Blogiversary Carrie!

Contest, Interview, Just for fun

Mini-interview + Blogiversary Contest Details

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CONTEST NOW CLOSED – Thanks so much to everyone who entered and promoted this contest. Winners will be announced later today (11th Sept 2010 AEST)

In exactly one week my blog will be celebrating its one year blogiversary! By coincidence Peevish Penman is also celebrating her one year blogiversary on the same day (10th September in the US and the 11th September in Australia). To celebrate our joint blogiversary we will be holding a joint contest. But before I give you the contest details I’d like to introduce Peevish Penman (aka Carrie Bailey) a writer, blogger and mom from Oregon. She runs a fantastic Writer’s Zine on her blog and has taken some time to answer a few questions for my blog to launch our joint contest.

1.  Do you have a writing mantra and would you recommend it for other writers?

I use a string of curse words followed by “so write already, Carrie.”  In truth, I try so hard to stay “G-rated” on my zine and other media that it all just pours out other times and has led to my theory on “the conservation of curse words” which states that each individual must use a fixed finite number of them throughout the course of their lifetime.  My “writer mantra” is where I choose to expel all of mine safely and in the privacy of my own home where no one can fine me a quarter.

(GD: I think I will probably explode in an expulsion of expletives on my death bed. 🙂 )

2.  If you had to spend a year writing on a deserted island without any contact from the outside, what would you bring and why?

A generator and S. Michaels aka. @slushpilehero’s laptop.  My signed copy of Ashwin Sanghi’s book, “The Rozabal Line.”  Twenty thousand bags of coffee beans, an espresso machine, and a barista.  Plus, some peanut butter, spoons, and a row boat so I could row over to your island, Jo, and trade for chocolate. And a camera so I could prove to my twitter friend, @soulwindow, that I am not our mutual twitter friend, @ItaliaTrent.

(GD: I’ll trade you a Mars Bar for two spoonfuls of crunchy peanut butter)

3.  So far what has been your greatest challenge as a writer and how have you overcome it?

Typos.  I can’t overcome them, because they’re inserted into my work by gnomes-who excel at html-after I’ve toiled and labored over each piece.  However, I’ve found that if I simply forgo the need to be perfect and hand my work over to other people to edit, they neutralize the gnomes’ damage.

But seriously, there was a point when I used to experience a mild euphoria each time I noticed errors in other people’s writing.  I think it is an important stage many writers go through when they realize that talented writers aren’t great because they’re perfect, but because they’re experienced.

My desire to be perfect used to paralyze me from writing and/or sharing my work at all.  Now, I let the keys fly and worry about the mistakes later.  Lately, I’ve been sending out very rough drafts to people I trust, because the earlier I get feedback, the better my work turns out. Just ask YA writer, Juanita McConnachie aka @WritersblockNZ, she’s seen the havoc gnomes’ wreak first hand.

(GD: I wonder if those are the same gnomes who stole my TV remote.)

Thanks so much Carrie! And if you would like to see my answers to those questions then pop over to Peevish Penman’s blog for my mini-interview.

And now for the contest details…

THE PRIZE:

A critique from both Carrie and Jo for up to five pages of your manuscript. That’s right a total of two critiques for your first five pages. And because it’s our blogiversary there will be not one, not two, but THREE WINNERS! Three people will be getting a critique from both Carrie and Jo.

HOW TO ENTER:

Simply comment on this post (or Carrie’s contest post) with your entries. We’ll be running entries on a point system:

+1 entry for following @gracefuldoe on Twitter (+2 if you are already a follower)
+1 entry for following @PeevishPenman on Twitter (+2 if you are already a follower)
+2 entries if you subscribe to The Graceful Doe’s blog (+3 if you already subscribe)
+2 entries if you subscribe to Peevish Penman’s blog (+3 if you already subscribe)
+1 entry if you tweet about the contest (please include link to tweet)
+4 entries if you mention the contest on your blog (please include link to blog)

Good luck! The winners will be announced in one week on our blogiversary (that’s 10th September in the US and 11the September in Australia).