Divas Recommend: This Month, We Write IN HELL—To NaNo or Not to NaNo By Kristen Lamb With National Novel Writing Month ready to begin in two days, I wondered how many authors I knew were accepting the challenge this year and how many were still sitting on the fence, uncertain of their ability to impose deadlines, much less meet them, and stick to the...
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Recs
Divas Recommend “Top Ten Mistakes Writers Make When Self-Publishing a Book” by Guy Kawasaki Whether your goal is to publish your book with a big publisher, an indie publisher or self-publish, Guy Kawasaki’s list of self-publishing mistakes to avoid is good advice for all. Tips such as “Writing for the wrong reason,” “Having only one plan,” and “Not building your marketing platform in advance” apply...
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Divas Recommend: Dialogue Tags: How to Kill Off Some of the Little Buggers by Sharla Rae Sharla Rae’s article, “Dialogue Tags: How to Kill Off Some of the Little Buggers,” is a good source for authors struggling with overuse or creative use of dialogue tags. The article voices a lot about show vs. tell when writing your tags. Not all tags have to be verbal. Many authors forget...
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Divas Recommend: Stages of Revision by Natalie Whipple I’ve got revision on my mind this morning. Why? Because more often than not I have to give authors advice about where to start. When staring at a manuscript full of edits of all types and varieties, it’s no easy task to separate the forest for the trees. It’s easy to tell someone to revise their story,...
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Divas Recommend: Writing Secret: all you need is CURIOSITY and SURPRISE By Guy Bergstrom I love when I come across a keeper phrase, and while looking for a writing article to recommend for the blog, I found this gem “Writing Secret: all you need is CURIOSITY and SURPRISE” by Guy Bergstrom at The Red Pen of Doom. While discussing what’s important in novel writing, Guy tells...
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Divas Recommend: Six Easy Tips for Self-Editing Your Fiction by Kristen Lamb When I read this article, I fell it love with it and had to share it with everyone. If you are an author navigating the world of writing and self-editing, you’ve got to read this Kristen Lamb’s article, “Six Easy Tips for Self-Editing Your Fiction.” The six easy tips address some of the...
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Divas Recommend: Writing The Romance Novel – Seven Story Beats by Kaye Dacus Kaye Dacus talks about the seven romantic plotlines Billy Mernit described in his article “Writing the Romantic Comedy.” It’s a very informative article that breaks down the genre into seven descriptive plotlines. For all those romance writers out there, this article is very helpful by dissecting the meat and bones of writing...
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Divas Recommend: How to Hire a Book Formatter by S.M. Boyce What is a book formatter and do you need one? And what’s more, how do you find a good one? Well, here’s S.M. Boyce to the rescue in his article How to Hire a Book Formatter. This article is filled with great tips on how to find and hire a formatter for those...
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Divas Recommend: “Attention, Writer: Listen to Your Editor” by Courtney Cantrell Being an editor is fun, but sometimes you’ve got to deliver news an author doesn’t want to—or can’t—accept. Editors can assure an author until they are hoarse that each suggested change is made to improve the overall manuscript, but ultimately it’s up to the author to trust that the editor knows what she’s...
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Divas Recommend: 8 Ways For Self-Published Authors to Rise Above Their Fear of Metadata by Beth Bacon Today’s Divas Recommend is “8 Ways For Self-Published Authors to Rise Above Their Fear of Metadata” by Beth Bacon from the Digital Book World website. For some self-published authors, understanding metadata may be the equivalent of understanding quantum physics. And if you do understand quantum physics, you...
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