Kristin Nelson, head agent at Nelson Literary Agency, has a great blog series about writing a good query pitch. In it, she mentions what she calls the “plot catalyst,” or, “the main event that triggers the story.” Every good pitch has a plot catalyst.Other schools of writing refer to the plot catalyst as an “inciting event” or “inciting incident.” And […]
This week’s feature is TANGLED TIDES, by Karen Hooper. Karen is also one of the co-founders of the YA Confidential blog. Here’s the premise of TANGLED TIDES, from Goodreads: Yara Jones doesn’t believe in sea monsters—until she becomes one. When a hurricane hits her island home and she wakes up with fins, Yara finds herself […]
Recently, Janet Reid pointed out the importance of a businesslike email on her blog, and I started to reconsider the gmail account I’ve been using for my writing. My username included the phrases “cloud” and “hime” (Japanese for princess), which, I realized, probably wasn’t going to get my writing taken all that seriously. So I created a […]
This week’s feature is UNRAVELING, by Elizabeth Norris, which has a very unique premise and should prove to be a fantastic read. Heck, I’m already posting about it, even though it doesn’t release until April 24th! From Goodreads: Two days before the start of her junior year, seventeen-year-old Janelle Tenner is hit by a pickup truck and killed—as in blinding light, scenes of […]
This past weekend, I attended a NARWA (Northern Arizona Romance Writers of America) mini-conference. During a session on query letters, I read mine aloud and found out my query was still too long, even after I’d taken pains to shorten it. Take a look at the draft and see if you can spot where I went wrong: “The land […]
This week I’m happy to feature ABOVE WORLD, by Jenn Reese. This MG novel (first in a projected series) has a great premise! Synopsis, from Goodreads: Thirteen-year-old Aluna has lived her entire life under the ocean with the Coral Kampii in the City of Shifting Tides. But after centuries spent hidden from the Above World, her colony’s […]
Congratulations to @whatisjuanoscar, winner of MY FRESHMAN YEAR AND OTHER UNNATURAL DISASTERS! If the writing contests I’ve entered lately are any indictation, the competition out there is very fierce. To the point where I’ll let myself get intimidated if I’m not careful. Perhaps this is why my last few posts have centered upon the thickness of […]
This week’s book feature, HENRIETTA THE DRAGON SLAYER, is by Beth Barany, published author, writing coach, and professional speaker. AUTHOR BIO (courtesy of Beth): Beth Barany has been making up fantasy & adventure tales all her life. She writes to empower girls & women with her kick ass heroines who have to save the world against great […]
In my last post, I talked about the disadvantages of being one in a crowd of many writers. But strength in numbers has its advantages, too. Take the following advertisement (meant to encourage people to take the bus): Just like all these worker ants, each aspiring writer is doing what he/she can to get by. And […]
REMINDER: Free giveaway of MY FRESHMAN YEAR AND OTHER UNNATURAL DISASTERS to a random commenter or tweeter who shares an embarrassing moment. Either leave a comment in the blog or tweet to @WriterLibrarian with the hashtag #FrYrDisasters. The hardest part of the query process is not figuring out how many queries to write, or finding who to write them to, or even composing a […]