Optimizing Twitter Now that you’re on, it’s time to start optimizing Twitter. Lists What are lists on Twitter? You may have noticed people who have a rather different follower to following ratio than you do. What do I mean by that? Let’s say you follow 100 people. And 1000 people follow you. The ratio of […]
Working with a Facebook page How do you go about working with a Facebook page? Keep in mind that Facebook is constantly A/B testing (e. g. checking to see if new layouts or color schemes, etc. will make you click more), so these instructions might be a little out of date after a while. This […]
MSWL (Manuscript Wish List) Have you ever seen the #MSWL hashtag on Twitter? It stands for Manuscript Wish List. So, what the heck is a Manuscript Wish List? What do publishers and agents want? Agents and publishers have seen it all, or at least they think they have. They are on the lookout for something […]
Getting inspiration from visual artists Visual artists and the visual arts can be a source of intense inspiration. Because their struggles can be a lot like a writer’s. Consider how a piece of art makes any of us feel. Does it inspire? Or are you puzzled? Can it move you emotionally? And what’s happening around […]
PitMad on Twitter So have you ever seen the #PitMad hashtag on Twitter? Also, why should you care about PitMad? Let’s take a look at what PitMad is. What is #PitMad? It is a quarterly pitch session on Twitter. So essentially what you are doing is tweeting about your work, but it is only on […]
Children Children characters can present their own set of challenges. And I wrote a bit about kids before in the Aging post. However, now it’s time for a deeper dive into what it means to write about children. Infants and Toddlers The very young can change in rather rapid and surprising ways. Fortunately, several developmental charts […]
Writing Better Dialogue Better dialogue can elevate any piece. And it can even help to salvage a bad or otherwise forgettable piece of writing. Consider, for example, the works of Aaron Sorkin or Robert Altman. While these are examples from television and film, they should give an idea. Sorkin is known for excellent dialogue, from […]
Getting story ideas Getting story ideas can sometimes be difficult. Where do your story ideas come from? Harlan Ellison often quips, “Schenectady.” I wanted to use this image for a blog post about getting story ideas because it is perhaps the oddest thing. Because I really did see this dirty plate in the sink a […]
Exposition Exposition works. First of all, exposition basically means a literary device intended to describe a character’s background, or “our story so far”. It can be done elegantly, with flashbacks or dialogue or even a character finding something or other. It can be clunky, like when characters say, “As you know, …” and then proceed […]
Writing a query letter Now that you want to get your work published, it’s time to write a query letter! It’s understandable to be a bit anxious about this. Practice will help a lot, not just with writing better queries, but also with your nervousness. Understand that many famous authors were rejected several times before […]