Tag: author advice

The Challenges of Publishing Indie Nonfiction Books by Marcia Quinn Noren

Author Marcia Quinn Noren
Author Marcia Quinn Noren

For the sake of simplicity, let’s agree that authors who write fiction draw freely from their imaginations. Nonfiction writers are expected to deliver verifiable truths. We do not invent characters, events or dialog. Our task is to spill hard, cold, often ugly facts onto the page, framed in captivating paragraphs. Like novelists, we are storytellers engaged in a similar creative process, and what we write is filtered through our subjective perceptions.

Passion is the emotional component that drives the research. How we interpret information cannot be objective, no matter how hard we try to restrain influences that sway our points of view. Deeply held convictions influence the way our sentences are constructed, determine which resources will be brought forward to support our opinions, while at the same time we strive to keep the third person narrative consistently detached and trustworthy. After scouring every other author’s tome on our topic, we must remain convinced that we have something utterly new to offer our readers. Otherwise, why bother to retell the story? Continue reading “The Challenges of Publishing Indie Nonfiction Books by Marcia Quinn Noren”

Ed’s Casual Friday. Book v. Movie, Steel-Cage Death Match

This is another in an ongoing series of Ed’s Casual Friday posts wherein I cogitate about a topic and offer some opinion, along with what is going to sound like advice. Let me first fully acknowledge that I subscribe to the “Different Strokes” school of literary advice, inasmuch as “What might be right for you, may not be right for some.” So just keep that in mind before you feel the need to tell me that I’m full of dookie, Willis. 😉

Our topic today, Is the Book Always Better than the Movie? To which I respond, that’s like asking if the peanut butter sandwich is always better than the sonnet, as I believe they are two totally different forms to such an extent that the question is largely meaningless. Continue reading “Ed’s Casual Friday. Book v. Movie, Steel-Cage Death Match”

How to Lose a Novel Writing Contest

See, everyone reacts differently. Reading a really bad manuscript doesn’t make me want to cry. It makes me angry. No, I’m not kidding. I wish I were. This article could also be called “How to Make Me Stop Reading Your Entry” because clearly you didn’t take the time or make the effort to have someone else read what you wrote first. Among other things.

Honestly, NOT having someone else read your first chapter before submitting it ANYWHERE is clearly insane. That first chapter is your hook…that first chapter is going to dictate whether the reader keeps reading…and in my case, if the judge keeps judging. Yes, I’m back on the novel writing contest again. Hopefully, someone will gain some sort of insight from the awful, awful things I’ve seen. My eyes! (Cue music from Gone with the Wind.) Okay, I may be exaggerating just a little bit. My eyes don’t actually hurt, my brain does.

Missing words and typographical errors should NEVER occur in a first chapter. Theoretically, they should never occur in a manuscript, but we’re all human and eventually it’s going to happen. But in a submission to a contest? Really? I don’t get that. Many agents and/or publishers will ask for the first chapter(s) in their submissions instructions. If you’re not self-publishing, and you’re trying to hook someone, you HAVE to have that first chapter stellar and pristine. Anything less is setting yourself up to lose. Continue reading “How to Lose a Novel Writing Contest”

What’s in a name, Jar Jar?

This post is more a rumination than anything approaching “advice.” Because really, if anybody knew anything about any aspect of writing that was true in all times and places, I feel like I would have seen it in my facebook newsfeed by now. Different strokes for different folks, we’re all perfect snowflakes, yadda-yadda-yadda. But here are some things I think I know about giving names to those little imps running around our narratives, couched in Star Wars terms in a blatant attempt to hold people’s interest. Continue reading “What’s in a name, Jar Jar?”