Tag Archives: Helpful sites

Helpful sites, Picture Books, Writing skills and techniques

Helpful Writing Sites and Blog Posts May 2011

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It’s time for my monthly round up of helpful writing sites and blog posts. All links will be added to the masterlist (link at top of blog).

Writing

50 Books That Will Make You a Better Writer

A list of 50 of the best writing books, from Stephen King’s On Writing to Stunk and White’s The Element of Style.

Need Some Bling for Your Title? Try PRISM

Five elements to keep in mind when brainstorming an effective title for your novel.

How to Write the Ending of Your Novel

Author Joanna Penn gives tips on writing the ending of your novel so the reader will finish the book wanting to buy your next novel.

How to Write (a Book). A Wee Rant

12 points on how to write. No, this isn’t about the technicalities of writing, or plot, it’s about sitting your butt down and actually putting words on a page. One of my favourite lines, “No wonder we all have writer’s block. We’re not even writing. Plumbers don’t have plumber’s block, do they? NO, THEY GET ON THE FLOOR AND CLEAR OUT THE WINDEX AND EVIDENCE OF MOUSE POOP UNDER THE SINK AND GET TO PLUMBING.”

The Only 12 1/2 Writing Rules You’ll Ever Need

A great motivational poster for writers with some great tips.

Ponder, Polish, Perfect: How to Successfully Revise

Literary Agent Natalie Fischer goes over some ideas to help you ‘re-envision’ your work.

Wordcount Dracula

Literary agent Jennifer Laughran (aka literaticat) has put together a very comprhensive post on word counts in kidlit (PBs through YA) including examples of published books.

Picture Book Construction: Know Your Layout

A must read post for picture book writers on picture book layout and having an awareness of page breaks.

16 Manuscript Format Guidelines

Getting ready to send of your manuscript to a publisher and all the guidelines say are, ‘Standard Manuscript Format’ and you’re not sure what that means? This helpful post outlines what standard manuscript formatting entails. A couple of the points are a little outdated, so I would also suggest scrolling down through the comments that correct them. And in particular have a look at the comment by NEB which is quite informative.

Pitching

Hook ‘Em In (in three seconds or less)

Literary agent Natalie Fischer gives some helpful hook tips.

Marketing

The Seven Book Marketing Mistakes That Authors Make

Want your book to sell? Make sure you’re not making these marketing mistakes. A couple of these are more applicable to self-published authors, but some of them are applicable to all authors.

5 Questions to Ask Yourself After Hearing: We Can’t Sell Enough to Justify Publishing It

Some tips on what to do next. I’ve put this under the heading of marketing because in most part the tips relate to making your book more marketable or building your author platform.

Blogging

Formatting Posts and Pages

Geared towards WordPress users, but helpful to other blogging platform users too, this post outlines the golden rule for formatting your blog posts to make them easier for your readers to read (hence keeping their attention).

Blog Law – Is Your Giveaway Legal?

Many writers I know do giveaways/ have competitions on their blogs. But are those giveaways/competitions legal? An attorney and blogger provides information on running blog giveaways in simple/easy to understand terms.

Helpful sites, Picture Books, Queries, Writing skills and techniques

Helpful Writing Sites and Blog Posts March 2011

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I’m excited this month to introduce a new addition to my blog. If you look up at the tabs above you will see a new one titled, ‘Helpful Writing Sites and Blog Posts Masterlist’. In this master list I have gathered all the links from all the past editions of ‘Helpful Writing Sites and Blog Posts’ into one place. This way you won’t have to go searching through all the past editions to find the link you’re looking for. To make it even easier, I’ve put the links under headings, such as: ‘dialogue’, ‘openings’ and ‘queries’, so if you’re looking for information on query writing, go to the ‘queries’ section or if you want a stronger opening, go to the ‘openings’ section. From now on, whenever I do one of these monthly posts, the links will get added to the master list.

Now, onto this month’s edition:

Writing

How to Get Published: A Flowchart

A great flowchart (and checklist) on the writing process and a great way to know if you’re ready to query.

My Writing Success: The ONE Thing That Helped Me Most

Author Jody Hedlund explains the one specific thing that helped her most on her journey towards writing success.

On Story Openings

Using their soon-to-be-published anthology of stories as examples, The Australian Literature Review outlines the elements of effective story opening lines.

Story Skeletons: Teaching Plot Structure with Picture Books

Although this post is meant to be a teaching tool for young readers/writers in the classroom, it’s a great post for writers of picture books as well. It focuses on the basic structures used in picture story books and includes examples of each structure.

Where Should a Second Chapter Start?

There’s always a big focus for writers on getting that first chapter perfect, but what about chapter two? This post looks at building a strong second chapter.

Five Ways to Show Emotion in Your Writing

Based on the book From Where You Dream: The Process of Writing Fiction by Robert Olen Butler, this post looks at expressing emotion in your writing with a focus on showing vs telling.

Genre Novels – Word Count Rules, Subgenres, and Guidelines for Getting Your Book Published

A short guide to word count rules and subgenres for the various genres (fantasy, romance, historical, mystery, thriller, horror, YA, and Western).

Ten Mistakes Writers Don’t See (But Can Easily Fix When They Do)

Before you submit your work, double-check to make sure you haven’t made any of these mistakes that are easy to fix. (Sometimes this is where a critique partner can come in handy.)

NOTE: For number one, I find Wordle is a helpful website for weeding out crutch words. For number nine, reading aloud is a great way to pick up on awkward phrasing.

The Doctor is in the House – Novel Diagnostics

An exploration of common problems found in the beginning of a manuscript that can be an indicator of problems in the rest of the manuscript.

Queries/Pitches

The Twitter Query

A look at how to write an effective query in only 140 characters.

Rites of Submission: Cover Letters and Query Letters

This article includes two sample letters: an example of what not to do (including common mistakes) and a successful letter.

How I Got My Agent (Part 1: The Parts of a Good Query)

Author Susan Dennard shares advice on writing a good query letter, using her own successful query letter as an example.

Synopsis

How to Write a 1 Page Synopsis

A break down of the key elements needed for a one page synopsis. Includes worksheet.

Motivation

On Sticking With It

A reminder from author/agent Mandy Hubbard that is hard to become published, and why it is important to stick to it and not give up.

Social Media

Twitter Hashtags for Writers

Using these writer hashtags on Twitter is a great way to meet fellow writers. A comprehensive list of writer hashtags, including a schedule of writer chats on Twitter.

8 Sentence to Immediately Cut From Your Twitter

These 8 bio mistakes may be costing you followers and you may want to avoid them. Includes two things you may want to include instead.

Blogging Tips: Tips for Increasing Your Followers and/or Subscribers

Rachael Harrie has some great simple tips for building up a following on your writing blog.

Facebook for Authors: How to Get Started

Agent Nathan Bransford gives some helpful tips on starting up a Facebook author page.

For Fun

9 Things Everyone Needs to Know About Writers.

Very funny and very true. Pass this list on to all your non-writing friends.

Speaking of Facebook author pages, I’ve just started one of my own. You can find it here: http://www.facebook.com/JoHartAuthor or on the Facebook link on the sidebar of this blog.

Helpful sites, Queries, Writing skills and techniques

Helpful Writing Sites & Blog Posts February 2011 Edition

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Before I do this month’s roundup of helpful writing sites and blog posts, I just want to send out my thoughts and prayers to those in New Zealand affected by the earthquake. If you wish to donate to the New Zealand Red Cross to help out those affected, here is a link: New Zealand Red Cross

Onto the most helpful sites and posts I’ve come across this month:

Writing

Punctuation Made Easy

This is by far the best site on punctuation I’ve found. It covers colons, semicolons, commas, dashes and apostrophes. It is very straightforward and clear and makes understanding how to use punctuation very easy. I always thought I was good at punctuation, but reading so many complicated posts on punctuation on the internet has often left me confused on whether I’m doing it right. This site is now my go to site when I need clarity.

The Very Basics: Ten Things All Writers Need To Do

Ten things writers should do if they want a shot at getting published.

Opening No Nos

Killzone author James Scott Bell outlines opening chapter no nos based on statements by literary agents.

Five Tips for Your First Five Pages

From things you shouldn’t do in your opening to things you should do.

Back to Basics – Dialog

This post explains the difference between a conversation and dialogue.

8 Ways to Pile on the Fear in Your Horror Fiction

Great post for horror writers looking for ways to amp up the fear factor in their writing.

The Power of Touch

A look at the way J.K. Rowling uses touch in the Harry Potter series as a way of showing emotion, rather than telling.

Creating a Magic System

A great post for fantasy writers on creating a magic system that fits best with the world in your novel.

Lovable and Admirable Characters

We all want to create characters our readers will want to read more about. Author Denise Jaden shares some advice she received about qualities your main character should have to ensure he/she is engaging and lovable.

How to Get the Biggest Bang for Your Plot Point

This post outlines where your main plot points occur in your manuscript and what you should be doing at these points to create a deeper connection with your reader.

Tightening Your (Manuscript’s) Belt

A checklist for eliminating unnecessary prose.

7 Ways Glee Can Improve Your Fiction Writing

Joanna Penn uses the popular TV show ‘Glee’ as a metaphor for ways to improve your writing.

Queries

How to Write a Bio for Your Query

Dot point list of what to include and also includes an example of what to do if you have no writing credentials.

What Your Query Says About Your Book

Your query letter is your first impression of your manuscript. This post tells you how much an agent can tell about your manuscript just by reading your query letter.

Query Me Crazy

Corinne Jackson shares an original query letter she wrote that kept getting rejected, tips she received from a literary agent to improve the query and a revised query she wrote using the tips from the agent that resulted in requests for  partials and fulls.

Just for Fun

The 46 Stages of Twitter

For anyone on Twitter, you’ll be able to relate to these ‘stages’.

Helpful sites, Queries, Writing skills and techniques

Helpful Writing Sites & Blog Posts January 2011

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The first helpful writing sites blog post for the year. I’ve come across quite a few good ones this month.

Writing Advice

Writing in the Age of Distraction

Tips on how to balance writing with social media/the internet. What I most like about this post is that Cory Doctorow outlines how the internet has benefited his writing as much as it’s been a distraction and that there can be balance – you don’t have to black-ban yourself from the internet to get writing done.

Back Story and Exposition

Brooke Johnson talks about mastering the skills of back story and exposition without resorting to the dreaded ‘info-dump’.

How to Write Intriguing Male and Female Characters

A post on how understanding gender differences can improve your writing in any genre.

Want to Get High (Concept)?

A post explaining what makes a story ‘high concept’.

The Increasing Importance of the First Chapter

Author Jody Hedlund explains why the first chapter is so important. She also includes a link to a post on ‘Potential First Chapter Problems’.

100 Stories for Queensland Update

While the submissions for the 100 Stories for Queensland Anthology closes today (there’s still just over 12 hours left to submit – it’s for a great cause), this post is worth reading if you are a short story writer. Scroll down the page a little and Nick Daw gives some great advice on writing short stories.

Queries

Is the Query System Dying?

Author Jody Hedlund talks about query statistics and how you can improve your chances of getting an agent.

The Difference Between ‘Pitch’ and ‘Query’

Query Shark, Janet Reid, outlines the difference between giving a verbal pitch to an agent and writing a query.

Your Professional Bio: Query Letter and Cover Letter Tips for Writers

As part of a query or cover letter, writers are asked to include a bio paragraph. This post outlines the things you should and shouldn’t include in your bio paragraph, and what to do if you have no writing credentials.

The Biggest Mistakes Writers Make When Querying Literary Agents

This is a long post, but well worth reading. J.M. Tohline e-mailed 100 literary agents and asked them the same question, “What is the single biggest mistake writers make when querying you?” This post looks at the answers received from these agents, including some of the detail agents went into when answering.

Synopses

How to Write a Synopsis for Your Novel

7 steps to writing an effective synopsis.  This post gives advice on how to avoid ending up with a boring summary of your story (‘and then this happened and then that happened’), and tells you how you can include the emotional twists and turns that make your story interesting.

Manuscript Submission

Checklist for Submission

This truly awesome checklist has been compiled by an editor/publisher. The comprehensive checklist includes everything you need to remember when submitting your manuscript. It even includes a handy printable version with check boxes.

Formatting Your Manuscript – The Silent Scream

All the things you can do to ‘keep your editor’s hair from turning white’.

*image by nuttakit

Helpful sites, Uncategorized

Favourite Helpful Writing Posts 2010

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Usually at the end of each month I do a roundup of the best helpful writing sites and blog posts I come across during the month. This month I will be doing things a little differently. For those who follow me on Twitter, or read my post from last week, you will know I have been a bit disconnected from the internet this past month due to some bad news I received early in the month. For those who don’t follow me, I found out I lost my baby early this month and I’ve been having a hard time emotionally. I’m starting to get back into the swing of things now, but as a result of my disconnectedness from the net I haven’t collected many great sites this month to share. Instead I’ve decided to do a roundup of a few of my favourite posts from throughout the year, ones I thought were so helpful I bookmarked them for future reference.

Helpful Writing Posts

Key Elements of Strong Fiction

Shennandoah Diaz writes about creating the foundation of strong fiction by establishing dynamic characters, an intriguing plot, a compelling voice, and a vibrant setting. She gives great examples to illustrate her points.

Top 8 Tips for Writing Dialogue

Ginny Wiehardt outlines eight ways you can improve your dialogue so it sounds more realistic, advances the story and fleshes out your characters.

Dialogue Tags

A great little reminder on the correct use of dialogue tags with examples of correct and incorrect usage.

Evil Overlords Lists

An excerpt from Teresa Neilsen Hayden’s lecture on ‘Stupid Plotting Tricks’ giving a look at cliches revolving around villains and the genres of science fiction and fantasy.

Counting Chickens: A Few Words About Word Counts

For anyone writing any form of kidlit (from picture books to young adult  novels), Hope Vestergaard’s post is handy to bookmark as a reminder on appropriate word counts for kidlit.

Workshop: Writing the Novel Synopsis

For any writer who dreads writing a novel synopsis or isn’t sure how to go about writing one, this workshop by Sheila Kelly shows you how to write a synopsis. She outlines the main elements you need to include and how to format it.

Helpful Writing PDFs

Book in a Month Worksheets

These worksheets are primarily geared towards planning for NaNoWriMo, but they are great planning tools for anyone thinking about starting a new novel idea. There’s a planning sheet for everything from story idea maps to character sketches to act one, two and three plot goals.

Eleven Senses – Who Knew?

I’ve mentioned this resource a few times on this blog. It outlines not only the five main senses we use, but six extra ones as well. It includes some writing exercises using the various senses and a great list of words for each sense (so you don’t always have to fall back on the same old sense words all the time, like saw and heard).

I hope everyone is enjoying their holidays and you all have a happy and safe new year!

Currently writing, Helpful sites, Just for fun, NaNoWriMo, Queries, Writing skills and techniques

Helpful Sites November 2010 edition + NaNoWriMo Results!

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I have to start this post by yelling very loudly “I DID IT!” I reached 50,000 words on the 30th November (today) at 4.10pm Australian time. I’d actually fallen behind my word goal the last few days, meaning I had to write around 2,100 words today to hit 50k. It was very exciting putting my 50,000 words into the NaNoWriMo word count evaluator and receiving my winner’s certificate. Thank-you so much to everyone who cheered me on and supported me throughout the month of November. And in case you don’t believe me, here’s my NaNoWriMo page (complete with my final word count).

Now onto the helpful websites and blog posts for the month of November. There aren’t quite as many as usual, since I’ve been writing more than scouting for sites, but there were a few good ones. I’ve even included a few at the end for those finishing up NaNoWriMo and in need of a laugh.

Resource Roundup – NaNoWriMo Edition

The bluestocking blog did a great round up of helpful and insightful posts relating to NaNoWriMo earlier in the month, but there are quite a few helpful writing links in there worth checking out even though NaNo is now over.

Plotting Your Story

Brooke Johnson, self-proclaimed panster, outlines how she still does some plotting when she writes.

7 Things Your Characters Do Too Much

I know I’m guilty of a couple of these!

The Five Elements of a Novel Query

The first post in a blog series on writing novel queries, this post outlines the five elements that should be included in your query, and follows up with some examples.

5 Ways to Make Your Novel Helplessly Addictive

Five things you should be including on every page of your book to ensure your reader keeps on reading.

6 and 1/2 Ways to Impress an Agent

Literary agent Tina Wexler outlines six and a half ways to impress an agent.

And now for the fun stuff (because I know after writing 50k words in a month I need some relief)…

Lemony Snicket’s Pep Talk

Anyone who is an official NaNoWriMo participant would have got this in their inbox during November, but if you’re not an official participant or you never got around to opening the e-mail you should read this. Quite funny.

So You’ve Discovered That You’re A Fictional Character

Humourously outlines all those amateur mistakes we writers make when we first start writing by speaking with a fictional character who is the result of bad writing. (I’m sure a few of our NaNoWriMo characters are still in this stage until we go back and start editing.)

So You Want To Write A Novel

Weren’t we all that naive when we first started out, before we started reading agent blogs and realising there is more to writing than just slapping words on a page? I got a good giggle from this video.

A big congratulations to everyone who particpated in NaNoWriMo this month, whether you reached 50,000 words or not.

Helpful sites, NaNoWriMo, Picture Books, Queries, Writing skills and techniques

Helpful Writing Sites and Blog Posts – October 2010 Edition

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For this month’s helpful writing sites post I’m going to put the links under two sections. The first section will be sites and blog posts specific to NaNoWriMo since I’ve come across a few of these in the lead up to NaNoWriMo and the other section will be for general writing sites and blog posts, so if you’re not doing NaNoWriMo you can just skip down to that section (of course quite a few the NaNoWriMo specific links have some great information for all writers, so they’re worth a look anyway).

NaNoWriMo

Official NaNoWriMo Site

This is where you sign up if you want to be an official participant in NaNoWriMo. You can set up a bio page, connect with fellow NaNoWriMoers and find out information about National Novel Writing Month. There’s also a handy link to the forums.

NaNoWriMo Forums

If you’re participating in NaNoWriMo and haven’t already checked out the forums you should. There are a multitude of groups you can join, from age specific groups to genre specific groups. If you put in your location when you signed up there should also be a subforum visible for your area where you can connect with others near you and find out about local events like write-ins. There are also many threads that will prove to be helpful once the madness of November begins.

NaNo Notebook

One NaNoWriMoer describes a great way to organise a novel notebook in preparation for NaNoWriMo. At the end of the post she also includes some links to some writing tools that can be found online.

5 Reasons You Should Do NaNoWriMo

Still undecided if you should do NaNoWriMo or not? There’s still time to join! Johanna Penn lists some great reasons why NaNoWriMo is beneficial to any writer. I agree with every one of them.

Write or Die

I used this tool last year for NaNoWriMo and I don’t think I could have got as much written as I did without it. The idea is you have to keep writing until you reach the amount of time/words you set or you get ‘punished’. The punishments range from mild (an annoying noise) to severe (it starts erasing what you’ve written!). You get one pause, but once you’ve used it you can’t use it again for that session. I would use this one a lot if I got writers block, because it forced me to just write. It is also good if you are so many words off reaching your word goal for the day, as you can set the word goal you want to reach and just keep writing until you get to that goal. Don’t forget to copy and paste into your Word doc when your session is over.

General

Know Your Female Character Stereotypes

Wondering if your female character is stereotypical or original? Try this flowchart. Start at the start and answer the questions truthfully to see where your character falls.

Three Essential Tips for Writing a Publishable Novel

This post outlines three quick tips you can apply to write a publishable novel.

12 Common Picture Book Mistakes

A list of common errors picture book writers make.

The #1 culprit of Why Pitch Paragraphs in Adult or Children’s SF&F Query Letters Miss

As well as outlining the number one culprit of rejection of science fiction and fantasy book queries, agent Kristen also includes a list of the top ten reasons why SF&F query letters get rejected.

Top 25 Reasons Your Submissions Are Rejected

A list of reasons why agents and publishers reject writers’ submissions.

Does Your Book Have Series Potential?

This post was a lead-in to a scribechat that took place in early October, so the topic of whether your book has series potential isn’t discussed in this post. It does however have a handy little list describing the different types of series that exist.

Good luck to everyone participating in NaNoWriMo this year. For me it starts tomorrow! I’ll keep you updated on my progress throughout November.

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.

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).

Helpful sites, Queries, Writing skills and techniques

Helpful Writing Sites and Blog Posts – August 2010 Edition

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It’s that time of the month again, time to give a round-up of all the helpful writing sites and blog posts I’ve come across in the past month. I have quite a few this month so I’ll break them up into categories.

WRITING TIPS

Bring Your Characters to Life

Some great ideas on how to really get into your character’s head and make him/her come alive.

How to Write About a Real Location if You Haven’t Been There

Joanna Penn gives some ideas on how to write a location even if you’ve never been there.

Act First, Explain Later

Twelve dos and don’ts for writing a compelling first page.

Tension

Spawned from the #storycraft chat on tension, this post talks about ‘The Knitting Exercise’. By applying this exercise to your novel you can check to see how well tension is working in your novel. You can even apply it to your outline before you start writing.

In A Series, Foreshadowing A Character

Using the Harry Potter series as an example, this post shows how characters can be foreshadowed in a series before making their major appearance.

Tips For Writing A Great Second Draft of You Novel

Five tips for those who have finished the first draft and are ready to start editing.

Make Your Characters Earn Their Keep

Author Wendy Lyn Watson offers a trick for weeding out unnecessary characters.

GETTING READY TO SUBMIT

20 Questions to Ask Before Submitting Your Work

A great checklist for making sure your writing is perfectly polished.

Top Ten Novel Writing Mistakes

Check this list to make sure your novel doesn’t contain any of these common errors.

What Writers Wish They’d Known Before Pitching

A list of 12 things that matter to agents and editors when being pitched by writers.

Are You Ready To Submit Your Novel?

This post covers three critical elements to knowing if your work is ready to submit.

Are We Done Yet?

How do you know if your writing is as polished as it can get and is ready to submit? This post covers ways to know it’s ready and ways to know if it’s not ready.

Write on Con Forums

Even though Write on Con is over for this year the forums are still open. If you write picture books, middle grade or young adult there are sections for each where you can get critique or connect with fellow writers.

QUERIES/SYNOPSES/AGENT ADVICE

Writing the Dreaded Synopsis

Author Ebony McKenna gives some helpful advice on writing a novel synopsis.

Some Query Mistakes

Agent intern Amie (who also does great query sessions on Twitter using the hashtag #queryslam) lists 4 big mistakes you should avoid in your writing. And even though the post is titled ‘Some Query Mistakes’, the mistakes she lists can really be applied to your writing as a whole, not just your query letter or first five pages.

16 Reasons Why Your Manuscript Got Rejected Before Page 1

A former assistant editor outlines 16 common problems found in query letters and offers some solutions.

Interview with YA Agent Mary Kole

Mary gives some insightful answers to questions ranging from what she believes are the qualities of a successful manuscript to what books she would recommend to hone your writing skills.

How to Ensure 75% of Agents Will Request Your Material

This post caused a little bit of controversy, and not everyone agrees the 75% request rate is accurate, but nonetheless Marcus Sakey makes some noteworthy points.

How To Write A Query Letter

Agent Nathan Bransford outlines how to write a query letter. This is a really good post for anyone in the process of writing a query letter as it has lots of great information on the steps involved, from researching the right agent to the most important points to include in your letter.

AUTHOR PLATFORMS

10 Things Authors Should Never Blog About

Some things authors should remember when blogging.

ENCOURAGEMENT/MOTIVATION

Don’t You Dare Give Up

I quoted this in a blog post last week, but I thought it was worth linking to it again. Agent Natalie Fischer gives some encouragement to all of us querying and facing rejection.

50 Strategies For Making Yourself Work

If anyone else is like me, procracstination and distraction can sometimes get in the way of getting writing done. This post has lots of ways you can stop the distractions and get down to writing.

Happy Potter Day

In celebration of J.K. Rowling’s birthday (and her of course Harry Potter’s birthday too) last month, Harry Potter for Writers posted some quotes from J.K. Rowling relating to her writing journey, including some on getting rejected and being persistent.

P.S. Speaking of birthdays, my blog is fast approaching its 1st birthday and to celebrate I will be announcing a contest in one week, so be sure to check back.