Best Articles This Week for Writers 5/21/2010

by Martina Boone

There are so many generous writers, authors, agents, and editors out there in the blogosphere willing to share their experiences and expertise, it can be hard to keep up with all the information. Check below for our recommendations of great posts put up or brought to our attention this week. We hope you’ll find them as helpful as we did. And be sure to return every Friday for the current installment….

Inspiration:
What Does It Take to Sell A First Novel Survey
10 Tricks for Getting Inspired to Write
The Magic Notebook
Author Janet Fox on Getting an Agent
Don’t Pin Everything on One Book
Three Surprisingly Simple Keys to Success
30 Famous Authors Who Were Repeatedly Rejected
15 Writers on the Toughest Part of Getting Published
Pay No Attention to Shiny Objects
What to Do If You Get Behind on Your Wordcount
17 Authors on the Path to Publication
The Write Time to Write

Craft of Writing:
Random Complications Generator for Your Characters
Seven ways to show character growth
Jody Hedlund on Avoiding Plastic Characters
Making or Breaking Your Characters with Dialogue
My Dialogue Sucks
Un-clone Your Characters with Distinctive Dialogue
How Writers Can Use Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs
Ten Tips on How to Improve Your Writing
20 Questions to Ask Floundering Characters
Character Archetypes: The Hero
Creating Characters that Make Readers Cry
Kick-Butt Action
Show Some Character: Three Steps to a Breakout Story
Writing in Both 3D and 2D
C. Patrick Schulze on Imagery
Five Steps to Building a Believable Character Arc

Editing Your Novel:
Evil Editor’s Alphabetizer Tool Link
Typos no big deal? Think again.
Why Cry over Spilt Milk?
Better with Beta Readers
It’s All in How You Say It
Why You Must Be Your Own Evil Drill Sergeant
Spring Cleaning Your Mansuscript Part 2 – Staging
6 Fixes for Fiction Writing Weaknesses
What Writers Need
The Art of Revising the Novel
How to Revise When You Don’t Know What’s Wrong
What Tells You You’ve Written a Winner (#KidLitChat Transcript)

Congratulations:
Tahereh Mafi for winning lunch with Miss Snark & Johanna Volpe & all the other fabulous people who donated and bid in the Do The Write Thing for Nashville fundraiser!
Julie Musil for her article “You Don’t Say!” being published on Imagination Cafe!
Robin Mellom on the sale of her debut novel Ditched!
Jan Lewis for advancing in Cynthea Liu’s Red Light, Green Light Free-tique
The five gift-basket winners in our Underappreciated YA Novel Survey

To Market:
Ten Things An Agent Thinks When Reading Queries
How to Write a Non-Boring Synopsis
The Five Reasons Your Manuscript Keeps Getting Rejected
Why Your Manuscript Can’t Be Okay
Value of the Verbal Pitch
Getting into a Closed House
The Key to Getting Published is the Cover Letter
What If Your Agent Doesn’t Like Your Next Book?
Who’s Moving Where — Editorial Staff Changes
Trends in Children’s Publishing
10 Agent Tips for Writing a Great Query Letter

Pitching:
Rachel Gardner on the Verbal Pitch
Tips on Pitching at Conferences from Boyd Morrison
Nathan Bransford on Writing a One Sentence Pitch

Twitter & Blogging:
How To Tweet/Blog Like a YA Author
InkyGirl Breaks Down Tweet Chat (older post, but still relevant!)
10 Literati All-Stars You Should Follow on Twitter
Jane Friedman: Should You Use Facebook?

Contests & Critique Opportunities:
Nathan Bransford’s 1st Page Critiques on Mondays
The Contest that Imploded Your Brains
Red Light, Green Light Free-tiques
Once Upon a Time in Writer Land Contest
Query Tracker Agent-Judged Contest

Just for Smiles
Breaking Dawn: The Wedding Night
I’m Hot for Your Stereotype: Kristin White on Originality and Taboo (great read!)
A Game and A Fish, Two Actually
The Highs and Lows of Getting Published (hysterical!)
Psychic Storytellers Contest

Poll
Dont’ forget to vote for the best Underappreciated YA Novels in our survey!

Other Weekly Round-Ups
Don’t forget to check Nathan Bransford’s blog later this morning for his weekly recap of publishing news and information. Jane Friedman of Writer’s Digest also does a wonderful list of best tweets of the previous week, and Alice Pope does a Wednesday Tweet Roundup for the SCBWI Children’s Market Blog. Northern Colorado Writers do This Week in the Writing World every Friday, and Jennifer Roland does a Writing Roundup on Fridays.

Did we miss anything? Please leave a comment!

Happy reading and joyous writing,

Martina & Marissa

P.S. Thanks to the following supertweeples for some of the links and information:

Jan Lewis, @InkyElbows, @GrammarGirl, @ElizabethCraig, @JaySubject, @JaneFriedman, @BubbleCow, @CPatrickSchulze, @HUnderdown

Martina Boone

Martina Boone is the award-winning author of the romantic southern gothic Heirs of Watson Island series, starting with COMPULSION from Simon & Schuster, Simon Pulse and the Celtic Legends Collection of novels set in Scotland, Cornwall, and Ireland beginning with LAKE OF DESTINY. She’s passionate about improving lives through literacy and the love of books, and she runs the Compulsion For Reading program to distribute books to underserved schools and libraries.

She lives with her husband, children, Shetland Sheepdog Phinney, and Zoey the lopsided cat, and she enjoys writing contemporary romantic fiction with a hint of magic set in small towns and beautiful places. When she isn’t writing, she’s addicted to travel, horses, skiing, chocolate flavored tea, and anything with Nutella on it.

Post © Martina Boone and/or Adventures in YA Publishing. All rights reserved.

Posted: May 21, 2010

Category: Imported from AYAP

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← Previous: Underappreciated YA Contest Results and Poll! Next: Monday Conference Round-Up: Getting Past the First Reader →

The first slide is an animation of a science/magic room in a castle. A cartoon character of a mad-scientist looking man in in the foreground says: “Hello! Dr. Frankenstein here to say, Well Done on kid lit zombie week! I’m an expert at reviving the dead, and let me assure you, with a little spark, you can bring dead projects to life. Especially if you dig up parts from other dead things. I’ll even let you have a sneak peek at my laboratory’s store room to consider potential parts for your dead project. If you see something with a yellow glow, that means you should click it. Have fun!”

He points to the right side of the screen and a new scene slides in of a castle science/magic storage room. There are various cartoon Frankenstein body parts scattered around. Some of them have a yellow glow. If you click on them, the images below appear (I’ve added alt text to them, so I hope it works).

The Heart of your story is the main character. The protagonist is the beating core that truly brings your story to life. If your MC doesn't make kids (and their grown-ups) care within the first few pages, your story will flatline. </p>
<p>Your main character needs to be:<br />
• Relatable enough for kids to see themselves<br />
• Unique enough to stand out in the slush pile<br />
• Active enough to drive the story<br />
• Memorable enough to survive multiple readings at bedtime</p>
<p>Where do you find this amazing donor heart? It might be the very thing you loved so much about the manuscript you want to revive. It might be the younger sister from your shelved YA novel. Or maybe it’s the hilarious kid you blogged about meeting at a school visit. Find a character beating with potential and place it in the center of your story.<br />

The Brain of your story is the theme or central message. The theme is the big idea that controls everything else. Picture books are more than stories - they're tiny life lessons disguised with humor and heart.</p>
<p>But your theme needs to be:<br />
• Subtle enough not to trigger the dreaded "didactic" rejection<br />
• Clear enough for a four-year-old to grasp<br />
• Universal enough to speak to both kids and adults<br />
• Fresh enough to prevent agents and editors from responding with "Not another sharing/bedtime/first-day story!"</p>
<p>Check your other dead manuscripts to see if there is a recurring theme, something that really seems to be speaking to you. Find the bit of poetry you scribbled on the back of a receipt to see what theme inspired it. Reread the pep talk you texted your critique partner at 1am. Pick the theme that will drive your story, giving it purpose, direction, and deeper meaning.<br />

The Legs of your story is the plot. Not to be confused with a grave plot.🤪 The plot is what keeps everything upright and moving, as well as providing support for all the other elements. You have very few words to use in a picture book, so you need to do a lot with each plot point.</p>
<p>In general, your plot should:<br />
• Hook readers fast<br />
• Build tension that a child can follow<br />
• Create page turns that feel natural<br />
• Wrap up in a way that satisfies</p>
<p>You can borrow a plot twist (a leg) from one manuscript and the opening (the other leg) from a different manuscript. Consider if the subplot of the middle grade novel you trunked would work better as a picture book. Or maybe your Facebook post about a disastrous camping trip could become a story for kids. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other until you have your storyline.

The Arms of your story are the side characters.

The Torso of your story is the setting. Setting helps a story breathe and connects all the elements of the story. It isn't just where your story lives, it's what makes your story ALIVE. It's the difference between "this happened in a park" and "this happened in that park, the one with the twisty slide that burns your legs and the creaky swing that sounds like a baby crying.”</p>
<p>Your setting should:<br />
• Make your character's world feel real<br />
• Contain your story in a way that makes sense to young readers<br />
• Connect different scenes and moments organically<br />
• Give your illustrator enough room to add visual subplots</p>
<p>Half-finished manuscripts are a great place to dig up settings, since you worked out the place details before the plot petered out. Or maybe you had to cut a second fantastic location from your chapter book. You can also revisit the detailed caption from your Instagram carousel documenting your tour of that delish candy shop. Disinter a robust setting that can house all of your story's vital organs.

After you press the Click When Done circle button, the lights flash with the sound of electricity buzzing. Then the screen goes black and lightning zaps across the screen with the sound of thunder.

The screen then lights up to show the storage room, and all the Frankenstein pieces have been assembled into the whole monster. An upbeat song plays in the background. Then a speech bubble pops up with the words, “I’m alive! I’M ALIVE!” Then the screen goes to black.

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