Describing Characters? Be Subtle

When should your characters notice and comment on something and when should it be just subtly included?
Subtext is when something is going on in the story, but it’s only mentioned in passing, slantwise, or it’s just understood. Often, subtext comes out in dialogue, the unspoken things that the audience understands from knowing the characters and [...]

Eavesdropping: Real Dialogue

Notes from the Field
If you’re revising a novel or picture book, one step is to look at the dialogue of your characters and sharpen it. Tom Chiarella, in his book,Writing Dialogue suggests recording dialogue — yes, you get to EavesDrop! — around you for a day. At least for a couple hours. [...]

Success: What Price Does Your Character Pay?

I’m getting much closer to actually starting my new novel, but I’m still asking myself a crucial question.
What is the cost of success for the main character?
Loss of innocence. If you write a bildungsroman novel, that genre which take a main character from

Establish the Emotional Arc

As I’m working on the plan for this new novel, creating characters and trying out voices, I’m trying to strengthen my weakest areas.
My Weakness is Character
My weakness is character. I can plot fine, but creating characters with plausible character growth is hard for me. I think I’ve got it and my friends tell me that [...]

Manuscript Length

How Firm are Book Publisher’s Guidelines on Book Length?
I had a question come up last week: how hard and fast are the rules about the length of a picture book manuscript? Can you get by with 1900 words? 2000 words? 2500 words?
The length requirements for every genre, from picture books to easy [...]

4 Files to Prevent Mistakes

Use the power of your word processor to help you keep track of details while writing a novel. You’ll have fewer mistakes
Have you ever forgetten the color of a character’s eyes?
Keep a Character Bible: create a file in which you keep descriptions of each character. This is much easier than hunting through a mss in [...]

5 Writing Tasks for Off Days

Ever have one of those off days? You don’t sleep and wake up grouchy. You’re half sick but not really sick enough to call it a sick day. You are just disgruntled and don’t know why.
5 Things to do on Off-Days
On those awful days, there are still tasks you can do to be a productive [...]

Voice for Picture Books

Voice is important, whether you’re writing a novel or a picture book.
One question that often arises is, “Can you revise for voice?” Yes. Here’s an example of how it worked for me.

How to Create a Read Aloud Friendly Picture Book

One of the most important things to keep in mind when revising a picture book is that it needs to be easy to read aloud. Usually picture books are read to kids by adults. If you have to read the same thing over and over and over — and over again, then you learn to appreciate a smoothly written and fun text.

How to Write a Poetry Collection Picture Book

This entry is part 23 of 31 in the series 30 DAYS TO A STRONGER PICTURE BOOK
Poetry Collections make great picture books.
Write a Collection of Poetry on a Specific Topic
The most common type of poetry collection seen in picture books is a collection of . . .

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After 18 months of free access, the [...]