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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So much is expected of authors these days: not only the writing and editing of our work, but also promotion, speaking, social media, newsletters…the list goes on. One efficiency tool used by many authors to help with promotion and social media is Canva, an online graphic design tool that can be used either on a computer or via an app on your phone. The benefits of Canva are endless: designs are professional-looking, easy to create, downloadable, and entirely customizable. You can mix and match designs (copy & paste is your friend here!) to achieve precisely the design you’re wanting. Canva also has an incredible “Help Center” full of design tutorials and content sugg…
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It’s spooky season, my friends, and in my household that means three things: apple cider, pumpkin bread, and horror movies. But even if your taste in seasonal flicks is more Halloweentown than Train to Busan, there’s still a lot that we writers—of all genres—can learn from a good horror story. Despite being a professed horror fan, I’d never seen The Blair Witch Project until this month. I went in with moderate expectations: it’s rated 3.4 out of 5 stars on Google, and 6.5 out of 10 on IMDb, which are solidly mediocre popular ratings. Most horror films don’t affect me beyond the film itself, meaning I can walk out of the theater (or more often these days, away from my cou…
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While writing, are you worried about phrases like authenticity, loose ends? If SO, ASK YOURSELF: WHERE SHOULD EACH OF MY CHARACTERS END UP? Writing a novel is about communication. Outside of creating fascinating characters, a gripping plot, or filling pages with beautiful, engaging language, a novel should be clear in its purpose, its presentation and especially its ending. In a recent review of Jennifer Haigh’s A Matter of Choice, author and critic Richard Russo not only wrote insightful comments about this excellent work of fiction, he also provided some creative insight for the rest of us. Russo wrote: “At this point in a rave review, critics will sometimes intro…
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Hi, WU, it’s me again. Sick of me yet? Hope not. Because… [Cue the programing interruption screen, and old-timey announcer voice] The following is a writerly public service announcement. Or maybe it’s more like a report from the publishing trenches. No need to panic; there’s nothing here that amounts to an emergency, in the greater scheme. But my recent experience with my debut has taught me that Murphy’s Law holds sway over publishing. In case it’s somehow slipped your mind, Murphy’s Law states that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. And in the complex process of publishing a book, there are a great many things that can go wrong. Any one of those things can eithe…
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Hello fellow writers, Kathryn Craft here. Today I’m here to tell you about my program, Your Novel Year, that pulls together everything I wish I’d known (and all the support I wish I’d had!) when writing my first novel. I’ve brought along some former participants to tell you about the benefits of this year-long, fully online, small-group mentorship. Your Novel Year is for writers whose novel projects could benefit from: craft guidance “Kathryn has the gift of being able to break down complex aspects of story structure into digestible, teachable bites.” —Teri G., 2018 participant insight into the writer/reader experience “I’m so excited to finally understand my stor…
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In life, people’s days are punctuated by meals. Food is an important part of our lives: of course, we need it for survival, but it’s much more than that. It’s pleasure, it’s penance, it’s anxiety, it’s joy—depending on our relationship with it. Eating together or alone, eating at home or out in restaurants and cafes, eating on the go or around the family table: it’s all part of the fabric of human life, all over the globe. And in fiction? Well, it always used to puzzle me, as a kid, when people in books never stopped to eat or drink or you never got to hear what was for lunch, if it was mentioned. For me as a child, it was important to know: my diary as a twelve-year-old…
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Trained by reading hundreds of submissions, editors and agents often make their read/not-read decision on the first page. In a customarily formatted book manuscript with chapters starting about 1/3 of the way down the page (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type), there are 16 or 17 lines on the first page. Here’s the question: Would you pay good money to read the rest of the chapter? With 50 chapters in a book that costs $15, each chapter would be “worth” 30 cents. So, before you read the excerpt, take 30 cents from your pocket or purse. When you’re done, decide what to do with those three dimes or the quarter and a nickel. It’s not much, but think of paying 30 …
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I’m guessing that there are others like me, who have struggled to find a “genre name” that fits what they’ve written. Some genre labels seem pretty straightforward. Fantasy. Mystery. Memoir. “Young Adult” is defined by its audience, “western” by its setting, “historical fiction” by its era. Yet there’s a huge chunk of contemporary fiction, like mine, that doesn’t meet any of those criteria and thus seems to fall, by default, into the awkward category of “women’s fiction.” Women’s fiction is, in fact, the box I check when I fill out questionnaires or apply for awards, yet I’ve never liked the term and wish I didn’t have to use it. Nonetheless, I’ve accepted the label, no…
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It’s a great pleasure to share our in-depth interview with regular WU contributor, assistant editor, stellar community member, and now published author Vaughn Roycroft, on the publication day of his debut novel, THE SEVERING SON! For as long as we’ve known Vaughn, he’s worked to craft this story world–a journey that has lasted nearly two decades and provided material for six novels. The first of those novels, out today as an e-book and in paperback, has already created waves in the fantasy world. “With a fast pace and sweeping battle sequences, not to mention one of the best duels in fiction, The Severing Son will appeal to action-hungry readers of such authors as John G…
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This is an experiment in rawness. A prototypical journal entry occasioned by a minor crisis, since tidied for clarity. Despite its run-on sentences and stream-of-consciousness disorder, I hope to illustrate how journaling can become an invaluable tool for writers. When we are a sprawling mass of contradictions, journaling allows us distance from our emotions, so we can set a proactive path forward; that’s certainly good for us as people. But as writers, we can tap into our subconscious, excavating topics, themes—even plotting choices—which can make our content stronger. A Quick Word on Process Where you see round brackets, those are part of the original text. Square br…
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Congratulations to WU contributor Barbara Linn Probst on the October 18th publication of her third novel, The Color of Ice! Set in Iceland’s otherworldly landscape of glaciers and thermal lagoons, and framed by the magical art of glassblowing, The Color of Ice is the story of a woman’s awakening to passion, beauty, and the redemptive power of unconditional love. Barbara is an award-winning, Amazon best-selling author of contemporary women’s fiction. Her previous novels Queen of the Owls (2020) and The Sound Between the Notes (2021) were gold and silver medalists for prestigious national awards, including the Sarton and Nautilus Book Awards. The Sound Between the Notes wa…
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The actor Louise Fletcher passed away a few weeks ago (September 23rd), and though she had a career spanning over half a century, much of it in television, her signature role, the one for which she is most remembered, is that of Nurse Ratched in Milos Forman’s adaptation of the Ken Kesey novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Why is it that in a wide open field of other notable villains—Hannibal Lecter, Norman Bates, Francis Dolarhyde (the “Red Dragon”), Tom Ripley, Noah Cross—this gentile, soft-spoken nurse continues to represent a particularly insidious form of evil? In a Vanity Fair profile written by Michael Shulman in 2018, Ms. Fletcher explained her unique approac…
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photo adapted / Horia Varlan A disheartened writing friend recently said to me, “I don’t even know why I’m writing this book. We’ve just been through three years of Covid. Who wants to read about grief?” Well, if she was wondering who wants to read an entire novel about the kind of despondency that results when people become enmired in the emotion of grief, she’s right, her readership might be scant. But if she’s asking who needs to read about the act of grieving—entering into it without warning, navigating its challenges, and emerging from its grasp with new perspective? Well, that’s pretty much what fiction is all about. “Want the change. Be inspired by the flame …
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Since early May, I have traveled alone to Europe, eaten octopus, walked 130 miles of the Camino de Santiago, gone backpacking in a wilderness area where bears live, ridden an elevator to the top of Seattle’s space needle, taken a two-hour sailboat ride with complete strangers, sat alone at a bar to have a drink, and, believe it or not, gotten my first tattoo. I tell you all this not because I think I’m all that, but because all these things are, without exception, out of character for me. Elevators terrify me, as do bears, foods with strange textures, traveling in foreign countries alone, and pushing my body to its physical limits. I’m not too crazy about heights either,…
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My mother gave me a manuscript to read recently. She’d been raving about it for months. It was a gripping read, she said, a real page-turner. “It’s brilliant,” she told me as she handed me the typewritten (not computer-printed) pages. “You’re going to love it.” It was a gruesome whodunnit with a police lieutenant as the main character who gets thrillingly closer and closer to the killer, but the bad guy always stays that one suspenseful step ahead. But the language was stilted, the story veered off at random tangents, the police procedures were unrealistic and there were many major plot holes. The ending was rushed and entirely unsatisfying: on the final page, the lieut…
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My family has been enjoying the ABC sitcom Abbott Elementary, about a Philadelphia public school with limited means that’s run by a principal obsessed with social media and youth. Abbott’s teachers are from different generations with almost nothing in common, but what they share is an incredible dedication to their professions and students. You may have heard that actress Sheryl Lee Ralph won an Emmy for her role as Teacher Barbara Howard. She’s outstanding. The other night we watched the episode “Wishlist” and it struck a chord. Read on…it’s coming. The teachers have shared their wish list of school supplies with the greater community, and instead of receiving the nece…
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Sometimes a smoking gun isn’t all that it appears to be… ROMANCE, SUSPENSE, AND ADVENTURE! DiANN MILLS DELIVERS ALL THREE IN CONCRETE EVIDENCE DO YOU HAVE YOUR COPY? Bestselling and award-winning author DiAnn Mills delivers a heart-stopping story of a faulty construction job, the discovery of a dead body, and a sinister plot. On the family’s Brazos River Ranch in Texas, Avery Elliott helps run her grandfather’s commercial construction business. Raised by Senator Elliott, Avery has never doubted her grandfather is the man of integrity and faith she’s always believed him to be …. until the day she finds him standing with a gun over the body of a dead man. To make matter…
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