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.
906 topics in this forum
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We are so pleased to share a look at a new book by long-time contributor and multi-published author Sophie Masson called Inside Story: the Wonderful World of Writing, Illustrating and Publishing Children’s Books! The book, which releases on May 1st in Australia and this summer in the states, is a gorgeous and unique resource–as Sophie is about to explain. Q1: What’s this new book about? SM: Inside Story is a fabulous showcase of the richness and diversity of contemporary Australian children’s books. An attractive full-colour production, it is packed with tips, advice, illuminating quotes and anecdotes. The stellar list of contributors includes writers, illustrators, edi…
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(How I picture the Writer Unboxed Community. Look at that glow!) If it takes a village to raise a child, it requires a community to create a book. If you are a part of the Writer Unboxed UnConference alumni group, you probably know I had a book launch this week. But what you may not know is that DARLING GIRL is my second book. My first, EVENFALL, came out 11 years ago. Yes, you read that right. That first book was a quiet one, and although I received some lovely reviews, it slowly sank from sight. But, hey, I wasn’t ALL that worried. I’d sold a book, so how hard could it be to sell another? You already know where this is going. It was pretty damn hard. Part of th…
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(Yes, this actually IS a photo of F. Scott Fitzgerald.) In my previous post, I focused on the importance of the written word in the time of Covid, and on how I was embracing a newfound reliance on written correspondence to stay connected with people – in particular, people I care deeply about. Among the books I mentioned in that post was this collection of letters written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which I recommend to anyone who’s a fan of the author. Since posting that, I stumbled onto a powerful quote from F. Scott. (By the way, how cool is his name? I actually went through a phase in college where I insisted on being listed in musical programs as “K. Daniel Cronin.” Go…
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How nice when a novel boils down to one simple idea. Oh, my life as a literary agent gets easy! Pitching becomes a breeze. Everyone from editors to reviewers are happy too. There’s little to explain. No one needs to be sold. The story sells itself. The premise rings like a starting bell and the horses are off and galloping away. The novel has practically written itself in our brains. Except… High concept novels have instant appeal but reading a novel doesn’t happen in an instant. There are hundreds of pages to fill. With what? That’s where this business of writing fiction starts to get complicated. A good idea gets you going but going where? How do you hold…
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At the start of any mystery or whodunit, often authors find themselves grappling with a conundrum: how, exactly, do I hide my villain or “bad guy” in plain sight? This individual is often a key player in the story, meaning we need to introduce the reader to our villain early (ultimately, this makes for a more satisfying ending: no one wants to learn that the villain is a minor side character who shows up in act III.) We also need the reader to engage regularly with the hidden villain throughout the story. When keeping our villain’s identity under wraps, we want the reader to not only understand this key character’s motives, but even root for them. And of course, we want …
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When you read the headline of this piece — you can’t do it all — did you bristle? Relax? Recognize your own struggle as a writer? For most of us, it can be a combination of the three. We want to do it all, of course. If a great book idea comes into our heads, we want to write that book. If we have a book releasing into the world, we want to visit every bookstore and write every blogpost and promote! promote! promote! on social media. We want to share wonderful memory-making moments with our families and friends, take care of our responsibilities, do our jobs to the highest standard, field the curveballs life throws our way, all while maintaining healthy lifestyles, clean…
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We are thrilled to bring you an in-depth look at Writer Unboxed contributor Liz Michalski’s second (and very high concept) novel today: DARLING GIRL! In a nutshell? Darling Girl is a modern-day re-casting of Peter Pan. He isn’t who we thought he was. He isn’t charming. He can get older. And the stakes couldn’t be higher for the women in the Darling family. Just this past week we learned that DARLING GIRL was chosen as one of this month’s picks for the Book of the Month Club! DARLING GIRL is climbing the charts pre-release. And there is more exciting news that can’t be shared yet (darn it). Just know that this little book that could is one to watch! “This addictive tale…
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Have you ever imagined being interviewed on late night television about your breakout bestselling book? Do you long for your own Wikipedia page? When you read the New York Times “By the Book” feature, do you draft out what your own answers would be? Or is that just me…? Well, whatever your specific fantasies may be, we all have them. We all stretch our imaginations toward the brightest possibilities the future may hold, like plants seeking out light. Even if we’re a little afraid, I think we just can’t help it. It’s human nature to dream. It’s also human nature to feel the ticking of the clock. As the years pass by, our future seems to shrink, and some of those shiny p…
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“Writers don’t have time to read.” It was a phrase someone said at a book club I attended as nonchalantly as I think it’s going to rain tomorrow. Later that week, as I wandered the aisles of Vroman’s bookstore with my little bundle of books in my arms, I too wondered “Am I going to have time to read all these books?” Reading has always been second nature to me to the point where I could easily get away with saying that was born with a book in my hand. From Teddy Ruxpin to Reading Rainbow my childhood revolved around books. A trip to the bookstore was just as good as a trip to Toys ‘R Us, if not better. That love of reading continued through my adult years, especially wh…
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My dad grew up in Miami, Florida, the oldest son of a Southern Baptist deacon. Their house, like other midcentury homes, had a flat roof topped with a layer of gravel. On weekends when they weren’t at church, my dad and his younger sister were made to walk around the outside of their house, picking up pebbles that had blown off the roof. Was this necessary work? Maybe—I don’t have a gravel roof. But the lesson, as my dad told the story, wasn’t about the labor involved in roofing choices, but that any time spent at leisure was wasteful—sinful, even. “Idle hands are the devil’s playthings,” as the saying goes. I thought of this story as I finished Draft Zero of my current …
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Novels reside at the intersection of psychology and sociology. Depending on the era and the novelist, the intersection of the psychological and the social shifts and becomes the story of a character’s formation (the bildungsroman), or the story of a society that works to crush the very notion of character or self. Novelists negotiate that intersection, consciously or not, reflecting the history they witness and the societies in which they abide, telling the story of a character who develops agency because she disobeys, or the story of a character crushed because she can only obey. Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist, reflects on the biblical story of the Tower of Babel…
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Last Thursday something a little unusual happened here on WU. The post published that day was a new edition of the popular monthly feature Flog A Pro, by WU’s own Ray Rhamey. If you haven’t read the post and plan to, here’s your spoiler alert! in regard to the unusual aspect. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the pro Ray featured was an icon of fantasy, and the book is beloved staple to the genre. The book: The Wizard of Earthsea (1968). The author: the late great Ursula K. Le Guin. The results of the poll, however, were less surprising, with almost two-thirds saying they would not read on past the first page. And although Ray voted yes, and the majority of the comm…
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Whether you’re easing back into a writing routine, need a break from your magnum opus, or just want to inject a little fun into your day… YOU ARE INVITED TO JOIN THE STORYADAY MAY CHALLENGE New For 2022: 2 Ways To Play This year, for the first time, I’ve created a Fun-Size StoryADay challenge—one month, one story—to ease you (back) into a daily writing practice that fits your life. Your Perfect Writing Day Imagine opening your email each morning of May and finding an encouraging note, writing prompt or tiny task that will start you off on the right writing foot. No guilt, just an invitation to let your inner writer come out and play. What’s In the Fun-Size Challenge?…
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NOT writing as a whole. Neither of us would be here if we wanted to give up writing. But what if you gave up an idea that is holding you back? Might it free you, your writing, your creativity? I have to finish this manuscript before I can write the next story. What if you didn’t? What if you moved on to another story? Just tested it out. You can still come back to the old manuscript. But what if the self-imposed idea that you have to finish something before you start the next thing is preventing you from working both on the old story and on the new story? Maybe you don’t like the old thing anymore, or the story isn’t quite working and you can’t figure out how to fix it, …
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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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A story, by definition, is something that moves through time. If you removed the passage of time, you’d have an exposition, description, or interior rumination. While there are exceptions, like Jodi Picoult’s novel A Spark of Light that starts at the end and works its way back to the beginning, the movement of a story is usually forward—from now to later, from before to after. That’s why a good story engages our attention. We want to know what’s going to happen next, how everything works out (or doesn’t). Sometimes, we also want to know what happened earlier, before the story began. Usually, it’s because we want a deeper or fuller explanation for a character’s response …
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As I was working on this article, news came of Russia’s deliberate bombing of a train station full of refugees, mostly women and children, trying to escape the shelling in eastern Ukraine. That vile act added some urgency to the topic I was writing about – the problem that evil is often easier to write than goodness. Evil people make the deliberate decision to be bad and often take delight in doing harm. Goodness is less self-conscious, almost by definition. A lot of good people never think of themselves as good – they don’t let their left hand know what their right hand is doing. In fact, good people are often good because they have doubts or fears and do the right t…
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During the 2022 Academy Awards, much of the world was transfixed when the actor Will Smith strode onstage and proceeded to slap comedian Chris Rock across the face for a joke made about his wife’s appearance. (Rock compared Pinkett Smith, who suffers from alopecia and sports a shaved head, to the character GI Jane.) He then returned to his front-row seat and instructed Rock to “keep my wife’s name out of your f***ing mouth.” Twice. I happened to be watching at the time and, as one does these days, hastened to Twitter to see what others made of the incident. In the moments that followed, we collectively watched to see whether it had been a stunt gone wrong (it wasn’t), w…
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Welcome to a new edition of Desmond’s Drops! This month, enjoy three drops about: Mystery vs. Backstory Oppositional Dialogue Conflict Analysis Email subscribers, please click through directly to writerunboxed.com to view. Look for more of Desmond’s Drops in May! 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 BL…
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photo adapted / Horia Varlan Every element in a story must be necessary, suggests the dramatic principal known as “Chekov’s gun”: If you put a gun on the wall in the first act, it should be used before the end of the play. That’s equally true for any unusual detail. If you introduce a Waterford crystal vase in a trailer home, or a caged boa constrictor in the house where your character picks up his babysitter, it will grab your reader’s notice and make her wonder, Hmm, what’s that about? Because your reader will assume that detail is a sign pointing toward the story to come, its presence (or even its sudden absence!) will add an undercurrent of tension to any scene taki…
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Last week my youngest daughter went back to work in her office for the first time since the pandemic began. It was harder than she expected. Her office is an open space with dozens of cubicles, and she found herself distracted by all the faces and voices, by the need to be “on” all day with people, self-conscious about others overhearing her as she conducted meetings from her cubicle. It felt, she said, like being thrown into the proverbial deep end of the pool and being told to swim. And this kid is an extrovert. Maybe the organization could have handled this transition better, she said. And I said, How much experience do you think your company has with transitioning em…
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Every hero has a flaw, and that is a major element drives stories to their conclusions. In the meantime, the character goes through all many trials, overcomes all several obstacles to reach a point of self-realization where they can change and become a different person. Sometimes, however, the flaw leads to the downfall of the character. Aristotle called this the tragic flaw, often referred to by the literary term hamartia, although that is also taken to mean the error the character makes that leads to the tragic end. Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman is a classic example of a hero with a tragic flaw. Loman has many flaws, but his pride and refusal to accept the realit…
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When it comes to book marketing, this is what’s been the water cooler talk recently: On Instagram and growth. Read this New York Times article. On media relationships and quizzing publicists…also, how publicist’s should and shouldn’t respond to prospects. An old PR colleague sent this LinkedIn post to me the other day. On gaining more BookBub followers. Read this blog post from author Juno Rushdan. I’ve said this before–I learn a lot from my clients. Many come to me with a wealth of marketing and PR hits and misses. For this post, I asked a few authors at different stages in their careers, what did they learn about book marketing and PR which was surprising. Additional…
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When last we left our intrepid heroine (for those who forget and dare to refresh their recollection, go gently here and here), my current work in progress, aka the Mighty Manuscript (henceforth MM), was invigorated, refreshed and renewed by shedding over 22,000 needless, flabby words. She now stood tall—a lean, mean, once-upon-a-time machine—and was ready to … …be read by a second editor, to determine whether MM’s sleek new frame was indeed as healthy as hoped or, on the contrary, suffering now from narrative enervation from having so suddenly lost so much heft. As noted before, I’d hired Zoe Quinton as my editor for the first several rounds, and she was encouraging, th…
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Fiction implies a made-up world, but for some novelists, their books are rooted in real events. WU contributing author Nancy Johnson offers examples of contemporary novels that explore some of our shared experiences. Check out her video here. Do you center your own fiction around real-life events? If so, what have you learned in the process? As a reader and writer, how do novels help you make sense of the real world around you? About Nancy JohnsonNancy Johnson (she/her) is the debut author of THE KINDEST LIE, forthcoming February 2 from William Morrow/HarperCollins. Her novel has been named a most anticipated book of 2021 by Marie Claire, Good Housekeeping, Refiner…
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