Tag: author advice

Common Book Description and Synopsis Issues

Author K. S. Brooks
Author K. S. Brooks

Honestly? I’m not in the mood to write this post. Or any post. I’m feeling quite curmudgeonly at the moment. Maybe it’s the heat. Maybe it’s because I am, in fact, a curmudgeon. So, I’m not going to write it. I’m going to re-run my post on Common Synopsis Issues. Why? Because recently I’ve seen some things which confuse me.

On a daily basis I review dozens of author queries. Some of them bombard me with information, which comes understandably with eagerness. (Note: please don’t make me work too hard to find what it is I need so we can feature your book.) But what I find perplexing is the authors whose book descriptions on retail sites are confusing, lacking, or non-existent. Sometimes authors put information about themselves where their book description should be. Sometimes there’s a list of questions in place of a description. I believe the author is trying to tantalize the potential customer with those questions. I’m not so sure it works. I know it doesn’t work on me. Continue reading “Common Book Description and Synopsis Issues”

Big. Fat. Mouths. by B.C. Brown

Author B.C. Brown

What do writers do? We write; we sculpt and mold words into breathtaking displays of art that will, hopefully, endear themselves to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people around the world.

How do writers do this? We touch fingertips to keypads, or mar clean, white paper with ink or graphite sticks; we lay down lines of scratchy, spidery letters or pound out digitally-formed words until letters transmogrify into ruthless villains, romantic love interests, or thrilling action sequences.

What keeps a writer from doing all this? Our Big. Fat. Mouths.

I’ve been in the writing game a lot of years. I picked up a pencil to write before I understood rules of grammar, punctuation, and spelling properly. Those things are important to publishing but not to writing. What is important are the stories. Continue reading “Big. Fat. Mouths. by B.C. Brown”

Avoid clichés like the plague?

Author Chris James

There’s no doubt that one person’s cliché is another person’s erudite phrase, but how to handle clichés in your writing deserves careful consideration.

Technically, a cliché is a phrase that was once considered meaningful or novel but which loses its original meaning or effect through overuse. Or, as Salvador Dali put it: “The first man to compare a young woman’s cheeks to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot.”

Many problems with written clichés stem from the fact that in spoken English there are numerous common and convenient linguistic shortcuts we all use without thought. On a busy Friday afternoon at work, if a colleague asks you the best way to drive out of the town, it’s natural to respond with, “Well you should avoid that bridge like the plague.” Moreover, the tendency on social networking sites is to write as we speak, so in one window you are writing your current work of fiction, while in the other three you’re having nice chinwags with your friends. This kind of overlap has blurred what used to be a clear distinction between common utterances and what constituted appropriate prose. Continue reading “Avoid clichés like the plague?”

What do we need to make it work?

Are you a serious writer? What does that mean, exactly?

Thomas Edison

I’m sure you are all familiar with the famous quote by Thomas Edison about invention being 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration.

If that were the case, a serious writer would not wait around to be inspired to produce their work. You would grab your lunch pail and show up at work every day to pound out 3,000 words or more. Continue reading “What do we need to make it work?”