Characters Who Stick

What makes your cast memorable?

Saturday, I brought home a short piece of railroad track — because of a novelist.

The previous weekend, my wife and I spent time with a friend we knew because her late husband and I belonged to a book collectors’ group. As she works to find new homes for the items in his collection, she keeps discovering ones that leave her mystified.

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Why Write a Synopsis

There are good reasons to summarize your novel.

Yes, an agent or an editor really expects you, in your book proposal, to compress your novel, no matter its length, to only three pages.

Impossible? Welcome to the world of professional novelists.

A clients whose middle-grade novel I’d edited asked me to check her proposal before she sent it to an agent. All was going well until I … Continue reading

Give It Away?

Should You Ever Write for Free?

You want to write professionally, which means getting paid for what you write. So should you ever write for free?

I sure hope so.

Disclaimer: I’ve worked for a publication that paid writers well. I’ve worked for a company that paid a token amount for one-time rights for blog material.  But now I work for an all-volunteer organization whose magazine … Continue reading