Writer Unboxed - The "Connect Kitty" Approves
AAC can't help but deliver the best bloggish content that will inspire writers to new leaps of imagination. This one is mostly new releases, bestsellers, literary fiction historical fiction, mysteries, popular non-fiction, memoirs and biographies.
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Revision. We all do it … and do it … and do it. Writers have had a lot to say on the subject. There’s Vladimir Nabokov, who boasted that his pencils outlasted their erasers. Dorothy Parker, who claimed that she couldn’t write five words without changing seven. Robert Cormier, who quipped: “The beautiful part of writing is that you don’t have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon.” One of the clearest statements about revision comes from the always-brilliant Neil Gaiman: “When you’re ready, pick [your manuscript] up and read it, as if you’ve never read it before. If there are things you aren’t satisfied with as a reader, go in and fix them as a wri…
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Start your story at the beginning, write until you reach the end, then stop. Then start your revisions with page one and work straight through from there, too. Although there is no best way to write a novel, a lot of writers take this approach because it’s the most natural. And it may work for you. But stories aren’t always so linear. Instead, they loop back and forth, with later events affecting earlier ones. Your characters might veer in unexpected directions, plot points that seemed minor when the story started may turn out to be critical, and vice versa. The ending can change the meaning of events at the beginning. I almost never edit a client’s manuscript wit…
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An elderly person I know underwent a recent fall. She tripped while climbing the stairs in her apartment building. The good news is that her accident happened a few stairs up from the landing, and she didn’t break a hip. The bad news is most everything else. She landed hard, scraping both hands and severely contusing both knees. She struck her face on an upper stair, breaking her glasses at the bridge. Shock kept the initial pain away but then it overwhelmed her. Worse yet was an awareness of her vulnerability. The stairwell she’d fallen in was made of cement and the fire doors were closed tight, rendering it essentially soundproof. No one could hear her cries for he…
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Recently, I set aside the epic fantasy trilogy that I’ve been working on since 2017 to write a book about a small-town tea shop with a ghost problem. Those are two words I never thought I’d say: not ghost problem, but set aside. For years, I couldn’t imagine giving up on this ambitious project that had taken up so much of my heart and soul (and nearly four years of my time). I believed in that book. Why would I ever let it go? The answer, as answers often are, was deceptively simple. This book meant so much to me that I couldn’t imagine ever getting tired of it—that is, until I did get tired of it. When I realized that I needed to take several steps back from the trilog…
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A while ago, a writer friend of mine was talking about her first query letter. She’d let me read it and I thought it was well done. This wasn’t a surprise. She’d spent a lot of time on it, she’d researched, revised, and sent it out to critique partners for their honest opinions. It was at a place where further effort was just spinning her wheels, at least until agents started to weigh in. But she was frozen in place, terrified to send it out. She admitted that even though she knew the query and the manuscript were both in excellent shape, she couldn’t pull the trigger. “What if they don’t like it? What if they don’t like…me?” “They won’t,” I told her in my usual too-blu…
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photo adapted / Horia Varlan If you feel called to write about Big Issues—racial equality, gender rights, climate change, or the opioid crisis, among so many worthy others—welcome to the club! Writers have always been drawn to life’s most divisive conflicts. And if I could suggest just one piece of advice that all writers follow, it would be to write about what matters to you the most. A Big Issue novel can experience a few predictable pitfalls, however. As you plan or revise yours, here are some considerations to ponder, born of my experience as reader, writer, and editor. Consider your job Many who read novels are eager to learn things. I’m one of them. But when I …
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A while back I wrote three novels in eight years, all of them published to some recognition—one was an IndieNext pick, one was a Target Emerging Author pick, one was a finalist for a literary award…you get the idea. Since then, I’ve written many other things (poems, essays, magazine and newspaper articles), but I haven’t written a novel. I have wrestled with this—why have I started and stopped two novels? Why don’t I have that thing, that idea/passion/story I have to tell? For a long time, I thought it was because I wasn’t devoting enough time and energy to my writing, or because I wasn’t working hard enough on my craft through taking classes and reading books and going …
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I work with a writer who is in a refugee camp. She’s been there for a while (I don’t know exactly how long), and she’s been in a few others along the way (I don’t know where or how many). As you can imagine, she’s heard many stories from the other refugees on her journey. Some are harrowing, some violent, some heart-wrenching, some laugh-out-loud funny. She has a little notebook where she writes down many of these stories, simply because she loves stories like some people love exquisite chess pieces or Civil War memorabilia. She collects them. Some elements of these stories enter into her own writing. She takes little bits from this one and details from that and combine…
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Like probably every writer who’s read it, I’m fascinated by the recent New York Times “Who Is the Bad Art Friend?” article—but not just for the obvious reasons of the astonishing story it tells. (Haven’t seen it yet? It’s worth it. I’ll wait….) Yes, this is rich story material: two driven artists who began as peers, one more successful while another still struggles, à la Mozart and Salieri; interesting, complicated characters; and a question and theme deeply, darkly resonant for authors, who so frequently draw from life: Where is the line? Heck, there’s even an organ transplant. But as juicy as the story itself is, what I think makes it so effective and haunting is how …
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A good writer can transform any idea into a captivating, intriguing story. In writing, masterful execution can compensate for a mediocre idea. You couldn’t say the same about book cover design as it’s, first and foremost, a marketing tool. A proper cover should target a book’s genre, cater to your target audience’s preferences, and intrigue the viewer. A good idea — the main pillar of an effective cover design — helps achieve that. So As a writer, you have two challenges: coming up with a good book cover idea; finding a designer that can execute it well. Here at MiblArt – book cover design company, we can help you with both challenges. If you ever struggled wi…
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I thought that if I were broken enough I would see the light —Robert Creeley, “The Revelation” In the vast majority of stories, characters pursue what they legitimately believe is in their own best interest. They misunderstand what that is, pursuing the right thing for the wrong reasons, the wrong thing for the right reasons, etc., but they don’t start off believing their goals are misdirected. The story offers a learning experience: the character either learns the price of pursuing the right thing, suffers an awakening as to how they are mistaken, or steadfastly resists whatever lesson is at hand and blunders ahead. In the overwhe…
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The R&B group Shalamar told us that love can be better the second time around, but I wonder if that’s true. When I met with my publishing house editor a few weeks ago, she said, “You know what they say about second books.” I wanted to respond, “No, what do they say?” But of course, I knew. The publishing world and readers love a debut—shiny and new—but by the time book two comes around, the bloom is off the rose. There are the inevitable comparisons, and authors desperately want to prove they aren’t one trick ponies and that their glorious debut wasn’t a fluke. I had great success launching The Kindest Lie in February, catching the attention of journalists, bookselle…
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I’ll admit it. I fell for the title of Kelsey Allagood’s WU post on September 18th: “Active Protagonists are a Tool of the Patriarchy”. Upon reading the title my blood pressure rose, not because of the heated word “patriarchy” but because of the chilly suggestion that “active” protagonists are inherently bad and therefore “passive” protagonists are fundamentally good, and maybe even a necessary political tool for activist fiction writers. Of course, Kelsey was being slyly provocative. She did not strictly mean that writers should see passive protagonists as a weapon of change. Hey kids, here’s a great way to tear down patriarchy, misogyny, sexism, agism, homophobia, …
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Lately I have been obsessed with the quote (typically wrongfully attributed to Albert Einstein) that “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” By this definition, I’m bonkers and have been for quite awhile. I suspect a significant proportion of writers would count themselves in that same category. I write every day. Sometimes for minutes, sometimes for hours. Always with the hope that my fingers on the keyboard will produce brilliant prose that is well plotted, action-packed, full of micro-tension, and emotionally rewarding. And every day I write passages that aren’t. That adds up to a lot of days accumulating a lot of unsat…
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image by SEWphisticate Self-promotion isn’t the most famous naughty s-word, but it can still feel like a bad word to today’s authors. I hate self-promotion, you might say. I’m so sick of talking about myself on social media.With more and more options to reach readers directly comes an expectation that authors will do more and more to reach those readers themselves, often without publisher assistance. So! How do you sell books without a single self-promotional tweet, post, or video? Simple. In most cases, you actually shouldn’t be promoting yourself. If the goal is to sell books — or at least make people you don’t know personally curious enough about your book(s) to take…
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Warning: Hacks for Hacks tips may have harmful side effects on your writing career, and should not be used by minors, adults, writers, poets, scribes, scriveners, journalists, or anybody. National Novel Writing Month (sometimes referred to as “NaNoWriMo” or “November”) is just around the corner, which means it’s time to fool yourself into thinking you can write your literary opus in a mere thirty days. That’s a lot of work, especially considering you’ve got a lot of eating to do on Thanksgiving and a lot of mall doors to bust down on Black Friday. I know you can do it, though. In fact, you can finish your novel in November easily by using one weird trick. You see, NaNoW…
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There’s a lot of bravado surrounding the ethos of working hard. Every November, thousands of writers sign up for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and pledge to write an entire novel in thirty days. Other writers join Pacemaker challenges to team up with other writers and push themselves to generate a lot of words in a short period of time. Some writers religiously show up for the #5amwritersclub on Twitter. This summer, I watched authors I know sharing hashtags about writing every single day of summer. I’ve done plenty of these challenges, and I admit they can be very motivating. I love being part of a community of writers, all working toward similar goals. I thr…
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The more writers I guide in my career as a book coach, the more I see the need for writers to embrace key lessons from the world of business. Writing is art, to be sure. It springs from a writer’s imagination and from our very souls, it is brought forth by skill with craft, and is made whole when it encounters an audience of readers. But that art is made within a world of commerce, where books are bought, produced, distributed, and sold through various vendors and mechanism. It’s a business world, and writers need to understand that world in order to succeed within it. As I have built my own business, and guided writers to build theirs, I have made it a practice to read …
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I used to think I wanted to be a full-time writer – that there would be nothing more wonderful than having the expanse of a day, day after day, to write. But the thing is, when I happen to have a lot of time on my hands, I do anything but write. I will clean until the cows come home, work out, or spend time with friends and family. But I will not sit down and crank out words. Case in point: I lost my job a couple of months ago. Suddenly I had a lot of time to just write if I wanted to. But I was expecting a baby and there was a ton of stuff to do to get ready for her. I barely wrote, even though I wanted to turn in a new draft of a middle grade manuscript to my agent. I s…
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Some of us run into it right from the beginning, when we first begin to put words to paper. Others are luckier and don’t encounter it until later on their journey. But either way, if you’re a writer, at some time or another you are bound to run into Self Doubt. Self doubt hits all of us differently. It can be an uncomfortable itch between our shoulders or a paralyzing force that prevents us from getting any words down on the page. Whatever form it takes it can be, if not conquered, at least managed. There are three distinct branches of the self-doubt tree. Competence is about craft and skill. Do I have the writing chops to pull this story off? Permission is about judg…
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The first time I saw the Great Wall of China, it was on the front of a postcard my dad had sent from a business trip. I kept that postcard with the others in my bedside table drawer where I’d reach for them nightly, feasting my eyes on Holland’s colorful tulip fields and wooden windmills. The Eiffel Tower’s slender silhouette at sunset. England’s storybook thatched cottages. I’d flip through images of faraway lands, wondering what it felt like to stand in each place. Imagining the sound of their languages and the flavors of their food. I may not have known what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I knew what I wanted to do: travel. For me, traveling has never been about l…
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We’re thrilled to bring you this exclusive Q&A with multi-published bestselling author and longtime WU contributor Juliet Marillier today! Juliet’s latest novel, A SONG OF FLIGHT, releases in the U.S. on September 21st. Said Publishers Weekly in their starred review: “The alluring plot feels like the literary equivalent of a bardic opera and makes a powerful case for how a people can move on from the disastrous errors of their past. This is a remarkable achievement.” How can you not want to know more about a novel that is the literary equivalent of a bardic opera? Read on. And congratulations, Juliet! We cannot wait to read A SONG OF FLIGHT. Q: What’s the theme of…
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Welcome to a new edition of Desmond’s Drops! This month, enjoy three drops about: Combining Characters Escalations Flashbacks Email subscribers, please click through directly to writerunboxed.com to view. Look for more of Desmond’s Drops in October. Have your own bit of wisdom to share? Drop it in comments. About Desmond HallDesmond Hall, author of YOUR CORNER DARK, was born in Jamaica, West Indies, and them moved to Jamaica, Queens. He’s worked as both a high school biology teacher and English teacher, counseled at-risk teens, and served as Spike Lee’s creative director at SpikeDDB. He’s also written and directed the HBO movie, A DAY IN BLACK AND WH…
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Photo by Ted A small painting hangs in my hallway. Created by a friend some years ago, it is one of my very favorite things, and illustrates a poem by Sappho: People do gossip And they say about Leda, that she once found an egg hidden under wild hyacinths When I asked my friend to paint the poem for me, I had an idea of what I wanted it to look like — a girl in a white dress perhaps, discovering an oversized egg on the ground. But I kept my thoughts to myself, and I’m so glad I did, because the end result was so much better than what I’d anticipated. Brilliantly, my friend painted neither the swan, nor Leda, nor the egg — instead she gave me a simple sketch of hya…
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I’m at a writing retreat this week and it just occurred to me how often I’m asked about where to go or how to set one up on your own. As a writer, retreats are one of my very favorite things. I get to be away from the family and all of the real-life responsibilities for several days, and relish in taking care of only myself. I get to dig in to my writing uninterrupted, with lots of space to let my mind wander and process. When I go on retreats with others, I’m so often inspired to try new techniques or styles or types of stories. My friends also help me untangle a mess I’ve been grappling with, and I do the same for them. I also allow for a little fun on the side. It soun…
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Vision Boards... and the Wisdom of 8th Graders
The other day my 8th graders and I were brainstorming emotions for possible memoir stories. We were coming up with ideas like "incredibly excited--when my team won the soccer tournament." The idea was to jot down just a few words to jog our memory, so later, we could write some rough drafts and then even later, we could decide which story we wanted to invest some time in as we revised and edited and shared. image by Pixabay I was sharing my memoir ideas because in my class, I write right alongside my students. To get them s -
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Links: Board Games, Photography, & More
http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/WP/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Depositphotos_52671211_original-300x200.jpgHey hey! It’s Wednesday! I personally can’t believe it. The days are going by rather quickly, at least for me. This Saturday, I’m getting my third tattoo based on one of my favorite horror movies, The Witch. I am more nervous about having to rent a car in Boston to make it to the shop, which is a couple hours out of the city. Wish me luck! I also feel like we’re beginning the slow, miserable march to the holiday season. Not my fave. … I am obsessed with this artist on TikTok. She use -
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Illuminate I Could: On Lucille Clifton
Caroline and son. Courtesy of the Clifton family. What is our relationship to history? Do we belong to it, or is it ours? Are we in it? Does it run through us, spilling out like water, or blood? I think the answers to those questions, at least in America, depend upon who you are—or rather, on who you’ve been taught to believe that you are. If the history you descend from has been mapped, adapted, mythologized, reenacted, and broadcast as though it is the central defining story of a continent, perhaps you can be forgiven (up to a point) for having succumbed to a collective distortion. But wh -
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A Freebie, a Gothic Thriller, & More
The Lady and Her Monsters The Lady and Her Monsters by Roseanne Montillo is $1.99! This is part biography and part sciene, as Montillo weaves in Mary Shelley’s experience working on Dr. Frankenstein and the science behind it. Carrie mentioned it her Mary Shelley birthday post, but warns of animal cruelty. The Lady and Her Monsters by Roseanne Motillo brings to life the fascinating times, startling science, and real-life horrors behind Mary Shelley’s gothic masterpiece, Frankenstein. Monti -
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New York Pitch Conference - September 2021
Assignment 4 - Approaching Comparables - Sixty Eight by Brian Freeman Sixty Eight is a speculative, historical fiction novel that is written in the first person. Because of the respect and admiration I have for Lyndon Johnson, I chose to have him narrate the story in order to give him the literary voice that he deserves. One book that my story compares to in terms of perspective and depth of character is Claudius the God by Robert Graves. Written in the first person, Claudius the God is about a Roman emperor who deals with his own handicaps as he reigns on the throne during a political m -
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New York Pitch Conference - September 2021
Assignment 3 - Breakout Title - Sixty Eight by Brian Freeman Sixty Eight is a trilogy of books spanning across 38 chapters, 80,000 words apiece and divided into even thirds. Because of this, I am not sure whether there needs to be a separate title for each book under the Sixty Eight moniker, similar to the Lord of The Rings (Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, Return of The King), or simply a numbered volume collection of three books. Considering the book centers more on 1968 than the narrator and main character Lyndon Johnson (the story is written in the first person), Sixty Eight, s -
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BEASTS AND BEAUTY: DANGEROUS TALES by Soman Chainani (BOOK REVIEW)
Content warnings: Traditional fairy tale grimness, including violence, death and murder, child abuse, forced marriage, and so on; racism and colourism. Nothing is graphically described. You think you know these stories, don’t you? You are wrong. You don’t know them at all. Twelve tales, twelve dangerous tales of mystery, magic, and rebellious hearts. Each twists like a spindle to reveal truths full of warning and triumph, truths that capture hearts long kept tame and set them free, truths that explore life . . . and death. A prince has a surprising awakening . . . -
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Three Aspects of “Revision:” Reworking, Refining, and Revisioning
Revision. We all do it … and do it … and do it. Writers have had a lot to say on the subject. There’s Vladimir Nabokov, who boasted that his pencils outlasted their erasers. Dorothy Parker, who claimed that she couldn’t write five words without changing seven. Robert Cormier, who quipped: “The beautiful part of writing is that you don’t have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon.” One of the clearest statements about revision comes from the always-brilliant Neil Gaiman: “When you’re ready, pick [your manuscript] up and read it, as if you’ve never read it before. If the -
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The Real Through Line from The Godfather to The Sopranos Is the American Family
Like all of my mob-drama-obsessed brethren, I anxiously awaited The Sopranos prequel, Many Saints of Newark, which aired on HBO on October 1. Not for the blood or the body count but for what has elevated the mob canon of books, film and television since Mario Puzo published his novel The Godfather in 1969: Family. Sopranos creator David Chase became transfixed with the Corleones while studying for his master’s degree in film at Stanford. “I was just ready for that book,” he would tell Stanford magazine of Mario Puzo’s Biblical novel. Decades later, battle-scarred from toiling on TV shows li -
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10 New Horror Novels Perfect For Crime Fans
You may be thinking, lately, “what’s with all the horror content on CrimeReads? This is a crime fiction site!” And yet, like obscenity, genre fiction struggles to mold itself to any particular definitions, instead resting on the principal of “I know it when I see it.” I organized a roundtable discussion with some of the many horror fiction writers crossing over into thriller territory (to be posted next week) and many of the respondents described horror not as a genre, but as a feeling. And as well they might, for horror seems particularly difficult to *ahem* nail down. The following list is c -
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Five Great Novels Immersed in Music Scenes and the Lives of Musicians
The punk rock scene I came up in never had much in common with an English village. But the nocturnal world of basement clubs and backstage passes has long proved rich territory for crime writers examining themes of community, creativity, and fame. As I’ve turned from my usual cat cozies to psychological suspense, the mix of inspiration, ambition, alcohol, and passion that fuels this gut-level music has proved irresistible. And while there are wonderful mysteries set in the various musical universes, from the famed La Fenice opera house (Donna Leon, Death at La Fenice) to the brothels of Storyv -
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Murder in the Stacks: Mysteries That Take Place In Bookstores
As a voracious reader since age seven (Nancy Drew), bookstores call me as if magnetized. There’s something magical about rows of crisp colorful bindings and the scent of fresh ink. Used bookshops are especially intriguing, often offering bargains and rarities. On lazy Sunday afternoons years ago, my parents used to load us into the station wagon and drive to a magnificent used bookstore in Hallowell, Maine. The building was old and quaint, with peeling paint and creaky wood floors. Books were piled in the window. Stacked on the floor. Crammed into cases. I still remember my held breath when -
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Stuff We Like: Pins, Patches, and Decorative Adorableness
It’s time for another edition of Stuff We Like! http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/WP/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/SWL-Pins.png We love pins, and we love lots of different pins, and I’m sorry in advance for this one. It’s temptation in the extreme! Want to see? Just click that image above or click right here, and come shop with us! And if you’d like to browse some more, we have a complete Stuff We Like archive, including past Gift Guides and other posts of our favorite items. View the full article -
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Redux: The Subway Back and Forth
Every week, the editors of The Paris Review lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine’s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by signing up for the Redux newsletter. Welty, ca. 1962, Wikimedia Commons This week at The Paris Review, we’re waiting for the bus and descending into the subway. Read on for Eudora Welty’s Art of Fiction interview, Gish Jen’s short story “Amaryllis,” and Frank O’Hara’s poem “Corresponding Foreignly,” paired with a portfolio of photographs by G. M. B. Akash. If you en -
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Non-Fiction, Dystopian Romance, & More
Holiday Fakeout Holiday Fakeout is 99c! This anthology just dropped and features over 20 romances with fake dating during the holidays. Talk about catnip! If I did my math correctly with the listed page count, each story is 100 pages or slightly more. Need a date for the holidays? Oh joy…We’ve got you covered with 22 fake holidates to heat up your season! Travel from small towns to cosmopolitan cities, snow covered mountains to gorgeous mansions. You’ll meet sexy billionaires, brainy tech -
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FLAMES OF MIRA by Clay Harmon (COVER REVEAL)
Today we’re thrilled to host a cover reveal for Clay Harmon’s debut novel, Flames Of Mira. Described as an epic new fantasy series set in a world of ice, fire and magic, this is a tale of redemption with a magic system to rival that of Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series. Want to know more? We got you covered, here’s the official blurb: People like Ig are born from life-threatening trials that bind periodic elements to the human body, forged in the boiling volcanoes and subterranean passages under Mira’s frozen lands. One of the most powerful known elementals, he is forced to work as an
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