Revise: Remember the 4 Sources of Conflict

Conflict, the type that motivates and moves a plot, comes from four sources.
Yesterday, an editor asked for revisions on a very short piece which was meant for a kindergarten or first grade audience. The editor didn’t like the competitiveness between siblings. But when she contemplated taking out that conflict, she correctly understood that the story [...]

Keeping Current: Read Newly Released Books

Take a Reading Day
Standard advice: read what you want to write.
If you want to write a novel, then read mysteries or thrillers or teen or easy readers or whatever genre you want to write.
Last week, I took a reading day and had great fun. I often advise people to read

Top Posts of 2009

I’ve taken a look at my statistics and here’s the top posts on Fiction Notes for 2009, in order of popularity. Five of these are the first page of a series of posts on a certain topic. The other five are individual posts.

Novel Writing. 30 Days to a Stronger Novel. 30 one-minute creative writing tips [...]

Type

Do you ever type up someone else’s picture book or a chapter from someone else’s book? I do. I find that just reading a selection, even reading aloud, doesn’t

Research Competition

I am researching competition for a picture book idea. I know there are topics with very stiff competition and I want to avoid anything similar to what has already been done.
But this time, I am also researching how

33 pages

The 33 page picture book
No, there are no 33-page picture books. Not yet.
At a recent conference, though, I had a discussion about why picture books are usually 32 pages. One person suggested

current stories

Stories You Might Find Interesting

Janni talks about her revision process.
I’m featured on the Cuppa Jolie Blog in conjunction with the Summer Revision Smackdown.
Have you heard this? Dave Eggers has taken Maurice Sendak’s classic, Where the Wild Things Are and has written a 300+ page novel! It went from 324 words to 324 pages? Wow! [...]

Picture Books 5

7 Children’s Picture Book Manuscripts in 7 Days

I’m taking the 7 in 7 picture book challenge.

Report on 7 in 7 for the first week of May, 2009
Overall: This was an interesting exercise that I’d like to repeat in a slower month, not May. Why is the Nanowrimo in November and this had to be in [...]

Picture Book 2

7 Children’s Picture Book Manuscripts in 7 Days

I’m taking the 7 in 7 picture book challenge.

Report on 7 in 7 for the first week of May, 2009

May 7
May 6
May 5
May 4: Delaware and Miriam. OK. This is getting hard! Picture books are short, yes, but that doesn’t mean they are easy to [...]

Revision Attitude

Yesterday, I started brainstorming on revisions for a picture book. I got some editorial feedback in February when I saw the editor in NYC. But it’s been hard to approach this revision because when we talked, I disagreed with much of what the editor said.
Cooling Off Period Helps Me See Editor’s Wisdom
So, I put [...]