How to Get Published

by Michelle Gagnon

Recently a friend asked for writing advice on behalf of her husband, who started writing a book a few years ago but hasn’t made much progress.

“Let me guess,” I asked. “He’s right around the fifty page mark.” She double-checked with him, and he’d stopped at sixty pages even.

I’m willing to bet that most of the people who never finish writing a book stall out right around that point, somewhere between 40-60 pages. And here’s my theory as to why.

After months or years of talking about writing a book (because at least as far as my experience at cocktail parties dictates, almost everyone believes they have a book in them), they’ve finally sat down and hammered some of those words on to the page! Initially, that’s excitement enough.

Because the outset is always thrilling. And things usually go swimmingly for ten to twenty pages. Then, something gets in the way–maybe they can’t figure out what to tackle next in terms of the storyline, or their day to day life intrudes. So they leave for a bit, and come back to it. Or they manage to overcome whatever hurdle they encountered, plot-wise or life-wise, and forge ahead. Another twenty pages in, they’re feeling a genuine sense of accomplishment. They’re doing what so many people talk about but never achieve–and they’ve already written around fifty pages! The rest should be a breeze, right?

So what do they do at this point? (more…)

by Diane O’Connell

If you’re like many writers, getting that first draft down can give you a rush of excitement. The words flow freely, the ideas come at lightning speed, the book seems to be coming together just as you had in your head.  But then you read it back and — oh, boy, does it need fixing! The thought of cleaning up the “mess” you created is about as appealing as cleaning out a garage stuffed with a quarter century of accumulated stuff — and just as overwhelming.

Many first-time authors begin the revising process by going through their manuscript line by line and painstakingly “editing”: correcting syntax, adding some things, taking out other things, cleaning up punctuation and spelling. Often, this process can seem like torture. And there’s a good reason why. (more…)

by Al Kalar

There’s a lot of information for aspiring writers. Some has to do with the truly important stuff. Some is aimed at the details behind the important stuff. And some is, frankly, misinformation (”BS”).

Given today’s publishing market and the economics of the industry, breaking into print, as a “successful” new author, is very difficult. In fact, the odds are against you. I’m sorry, but it’s true. But by following this rule, you can improve the odds substantially.

You may have heard this before, but it bears repeating; because it’s THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE: (more…)

by Evan Marshall

When you’re learning how to write a good novel, it’s critical that you understand how very important it is to come up with a really great initial idea. You want to make sure your idea intrigues and inspires you and you want it to hook your readers from the first page to the last. The best way to come up with a good novel idea that accomplishes both of these things is to begin your story with a major crisis. If you choose the crisis using the guidelines I give below, I think you’ll find the resulting story idea will crackle with tension and excitement and will help you write a page-turner that readers and publishers will love. A good crisis will compel your main character to make a decision to solve the problem caused by the crisis and will give him a powerful motivation to succeed. It needs to be a big enough crisis that your main character will need the rest of the novel to overcome it.

Make Sure Your Crisis Fits These Three Criteria (more…)

The story…must be a conflict, and specifically, a conflict between the forces of good and evil within a single person. - Maxwell Anderson

by Al Philipson

by LuMaxArt

For a story to be interesting, there must be conflict. If your goal is to describe some utopian society filled with all sorts of technological wonders, you don’t have a story, just a boring travelogue.  How interesting would Beowulf have been without Grendel, his mother, and the dragon?

Ben Bova once described “a story” as “a narrative description of a character struggling to solve a problem.”

So, what do you need to do to provide the problem or “conflict”? (more…)

By: Printers Devil

The non-fiction world can have some of the same pitfalls as writing good fiction. If you write either, you can learn from the mistakes of others.

We received an inquiry from a fellow who is obviously intelligent and has something to say. He’s written a book on his experiences with a local governmental body and the corruption that goes on.

This sort of thing is a potential top seller for a local market, but he started the thing with what looks like a biography that almost put me to sleep. Now, I’ve only seen the first 1000 words of his book and I’m not “sold” on it. Nor would a customer be sold unless s/he had a high boredom threshhold.

What should he do? (more…)