Emily Wenstrom puts down some basic rules. They might be things you’ve heard before, but it’s always good to hear them again. I definitely agree with #5 – as long as you know the rule and you know that you’re breaking it, break away! Conformity breeds boredom!
K.M. gives us some clear ideas about villains and why they are important in the story. The she tells you – again, very clearly and simply – how to use them in your story. I would have to agree. Villains are so very fun to write about.
The villain in my Agnes story (a MG mystery-adventure story) is not know about directly for most of the story. This will make it more tricky to keep it interesting. I guess that’s where the mystery and adventure come in.
Craft Dynamic Antagonists Your Readers Will Love—in Just 3 Steps! – Helping Writers Become Authors.
I’m working on an adventure mystery book of sorts, so I have been keeping my eyes open for information about writing mysteries. I picked a couple books out of the library; one on Istanbul: “Istanbul, Memories and the City” by Orhan Pamuk, because my 12 year old protagonist – Agnes Kelly – is going to be traveling to Istanbul; two on mystery writing: “How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries” by Kathy Lynn Emerson, which I’m part way through and have learned some good tips, and “How to Write a Damn Good Mystery” by James N. Frey, which I think has been the most helpful. A fellow mystery writer and writing instructor, Christine DeSmit, recommended “The Writer’s Journey” by Christopher Vogler to me, which I had already read, but will probably skim again.
I also came across this post by Susan Spann that I thought might be helpful to you as well. She has some very good points, many similar to what I found in these two books.
25 Things You Need To Know About Writing Mysteries, By Susan Spann « terribleminds: chuck wendig.
CKBook Publishing
Where Publishing Dreams Become Reality
from imgarcade.com
I’m familiar with Joanna Penn and would agree, she has a very good site for authors and I just checked out K.M. Weiland – what a wonderful site! I’m actually quite jealous such a young thing can be so smart, the whipper snapper! The Independent Publishers Mag looks good too. Just two more the check out – Catherine Ryan Howard, and the Book Shelf Muse. If you’re a writer, I’d recommend giving these folks a once-over.
5 MUST READ Blogs for Indie Authors | Indie Author News.
CKBooks Publishing
Where Publishing Dreams Become Reality
Alex Radcliff summarizes some key points to a story from the book “Wired For Story.” I haven’t read it but it sounds like it would be worth taking a look at.
A must read for any author is “The Writer’s Journey” By Christopher Vogler. I also like the book, but not the title so much, of “Techniques of the Selling Writer.” by Dwight Swain. I don’t like the title because it implies that the only reason we want to create a good story is to make money. Of course I want to make money with my stories, but to do that you have to write a good story, and to write a good story, you have to write for other reasons than money!
CKBooks Publishing
Where Publishing Dreams Become Reality
In this day and age of easy access to almost anything, it makes sense that your published (and copyrighted) work would be at risk. It comes with the territory, I suppose. But it doesn’t mean you have no recourse. Here is some very practical information from Helen Sedwich on Joel Friedlander’s book designer site on content theft.
A Step-by-Step Guide to Dealing with Content Theft by Helen Sedwick — The Book Designer.
Christine Keleny
CKBooks Publishing
Where Publishing Dreams Become Reality
Melissa Donovan gives us 10 good reasons to learn a things or two about grammar (and I would add, punctuation). If writing is your thing, then this is something you should know about – you don’t have to be an expert – that’s what you rely on an editor for, but it will definitely save you money.
Because I base my fee on time, I do a test edit on all manuscripts I work with, so it will cost less to edit
an already well written (grammar and punctuation wise) manuscript.
If you want to take a grammar and punctuation course, check online or at your local community collage. I have taken courses online through Mediabestro in New York and I would recommend them.
10 Reasons Writers Should Learn Good Grammar | Writing Forward.
Ryan Lanz (I think that’s his name. I couldn’t find his name of his website but that is his URL so I thought it might be a good guess) has some good advise for writers.
Maria on Shewrites, give us a little grammer lesson. The tip at the end is the best way to figure this out, rather than trying to remember subject pronoun and object pronoun, though I always appreciate when I can learn why I’m supposed to do something a certain way, rather than, just because.
Robert Morris lists some helpful tools for writers, authors and bloggers. I have tried Evernote but haven’t found it that helpful for my uses. My daughter (who’s 18) loves it! I use Hootsuite and think it is helpful and user friendly. The Elements of Style book Robert mentions is pretty basic. It is a fast read and gives you good information, but I think there are a lot better writing style books and websites out there. This one has just been around forever. Scrivener is a helpful tool for writers and so is Jutoh. I use Jutoh. Both are important for authors wanting to convert word text to mobi or epub formats.
Killer writing tools that will help you get the job done – BookBaby Blog.
CKBooks Publishing 