Innehållsförteckning för October 2017 från Writer's Digest

1 Reinventing “Bosch” Crime novelist Michael Connelly (WD Interview, Page 46) shares more of what he learned in adapting his iconic character Detective Harry Bosch for TVfrom externalizing internal character struggles to reconsidering backstory, setting and more. 2 Untainted Love Find more uplifting stories from “Inside the Agent-Author Relationship” (Page 42). 3 The Deals That Dreams Are Made Of With a new understanding of “How Big Deals Go Down” (Page 34), get the skinny on how a debut mystery trilogy from an unlikely source inspired a bidding war. 4 A Decent Proposal Looking to submit nonfiction? Beyond the tips in our agent roundup (Page 22), veteran agent Marisa Corvisiero breaks down the elements of a successful book proposal. To find all of the above online companions to this issue in…

TIMELESS INSPIRATION I received my July/August issue of Writer’s Digest and was thrilled to see that my favorite author, Heather Graham, was on the cover! I am a huge fan and have nearly all of her paperbacks! I have been greatly influenced by your magazine—and by Heather Graham. I have been writing since 1970 and I don’t care if I get published—even though it would be nice. Like Heather, I love what I do and I always have! My two girls were into Barbies so I created a notebook full of Barbie stories as well as seasonal stories that they loved. The more I read, the more I write. —Rena Alden Hillsboro, Texas SPOTTED ON SOCIAL MEDIA Great advice from Jeff Guinn on researching for writing in the July/August…

Some are old and creepy; others are well-groomed and majestic. They can cover hundreds of acres or just a few square yards. I’m talking, of course, about graveyards, boneyards, cemeteries. Whatever you call them, these final resting places can provide an endless number of new beginnings for the savvy creative writer. I’ve always been drawn to cemeteries. I love to photograph old tombstones, read the names on them and imagine what sort of life the people lived. As a writer, I’ve learned to appreciate these sacred grounds as an invaluable resource of ideas and inspiration. THE NAME GAME Holden Caulfield. Atticus Finch. Holly Golightly. Ichabod Crane. A memorable character deserves an equally memorable name. But it’s not always easy coming up with a unique, out-of-the-ordinary name right off the top…

Claire Anderson-Wheeler REGAL HOFFMANN & ASSOCIATES LLC Born in Washington to an Irish family, Claire Anderson-Wheeler spent her formative years in Geneva, Brussels and Dublin, where she earned a law degree from Trinity College Dublin. In 2008, after getting her master’s degree in creative writing from the University of East Anglia, she dove into publishing, joining Christine Green Authors’ Agent in London. A move stateside to the “beautiful wonderland of NYC” brought her to Anderson Literary Management, and in 2013 she joined Regal Hoffmann & Associates, where she also handles most of the agency’s foreign rights business. “As an agent there’s a special privilege in working so closely and so early on with an author,” Anderson-Wheeler says. “Your interests are closely aligned, and you become a real ally to the…

E-QUERY: A query submitted via website submission form or email. LGBTQ: Books with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and/or queer protagonists. MG: Middle-grade—books for ages 8–12 (see Page 36 for more on this genre). MS: Abbreviation for manuscript (the plural being mss). NARRATIVE NONFICTION: True stories written in a narrative that reads like a novel. NA: New adult—books featuring protagonists ages 18–25, usually focusing on the first struggles of adulthood, such as finding love and getting a job. PLATFORM: Your presence that allows you to market your expertise and/or book directly to your audience. Examples include a popular blog, social media network, speaking engagements, professional affiliations, etc. PROPOSAL: A package used to pitch a nonfiction book that includes a table of contents, market analysis, completed sample chapters and more. (Need help?…

As an agent, I can think of few things more exciting than securing a big deal for a client. While established, successful authors can reach these six-or seven-figure advances regularly, I’ve always found it much more exciting to see a debut sell in a major way. The ultimate size of any deal can be surprising, but I do start my submissions with a general sense of what I can expect and aim for, based on my knowledge of the marketplace at that particular moment. (This is why it’s so important to partner with an agent who has a firm grasp on your genre, even if that agent is newer to the business.) Buzz building beforehand can also clue me in that I have something special on my hands. For example,…

Out of more than 450 entries, Writer’s Digest editors and forum members chose this winner, submitted by John W. Salvage of Columbus, Ohio. Mallory inched her foot forward, feeling her way along the narrowing branch. Her eyes were open but unfocused, gazing through the veil of leaves to the hazy sky beyond. The last time she was up so high her family had still been alive. “You’re doing great!” Stephanie called from behind. “Don’t look down. Keep going.” It was hard advice to follow when the loose bark of the sycamore’s limb tugged at her feet. Not so long ago she performed backflips along a narrow cable 50 feet above a roaring crowd. Walking along this branch should have felt like walking across a highway overpass, and yet her heart…

FOR YOUR SHORT STORIES, ESSAYS & MORE: Orion ABOUT: “The editorial impulse of Orion lies at the nexus of ecology and the human experience. The magazine distinguishes itself from the din of common culture through its depth of inquiry, commitment to interdisciplinary thought, and an emphasis on insight and imagination alongside a big-picture approach to problem-solving.” FOUNDED: 1982. CIRCULATION: About 20,000. PUBLISHES: Bimonthly. READING PERIOD: Submission windows vary. See website for details. PAYMENT: Contributor copies. LENGTH: 1,200–5,000 words for features; 400–1,000 words for front-of-book departments; 1–3 poems (40-line maximum). RESPONSE TIME: 3 months. HOW TO SUBMIT: Orion accepts only one submission per person per submission window, via the online form at orion.submittable.com/submit. DETAILED GUIDELINES: orionmagazine.org/guidelines-for-article-submissions. WHAT STANDS OUT & WHY: With a focus on the intersection of nature and…

Get a Literary Agent  By Chuck Sambuchino Filled with practical, straightforward advice and insider tips, Get a Literary Agent is a one-stop resource for writers of both fiction and nonfiction. You’ll learn how to research agents, navigate the submission process, craft a polished query letter, assemble your book proposal and form a lasting partnership with your agent. ITEM # U9394 RETAIL: $17.99 YOUR PRICE: $12.20* Guide to Literary Agents 2018  By Chuck Sambuchino, Editor Guide to Literary Agents 2018 is your essential resource for finding a literary agent and getting a contract with one of the country’s top publishers. Along with listing information for more than 1,000 reps, this updated edition of GLA includes informative articles on writing a synopsis, pitching your work online, defining your genre, utilizing writing peers…

Courage In the bedtime story rotation at my house is a picture book with a single word on the cover: Courage. There’s no narrative arc inside, but rather an amalgamation of the sorts of things that require a steeling of the nerves. Not all of them illustrate the dictionary definition of the word, per se, and thus the astute parent reading aloud might find herself internally splitting hairs (much as one should never sing along to Alanis Morissette’s catchy throwback “Ironic” with a grammarian in earshot). But the overall message is as lovely as it is important: That the world is full of small opportunities to showcase our bigger-than-we-realized bravery, that you are capable of more than you know, and that the definition, ultimately, is up to you. All writers,…

THE END OF THE BUCKET LIST Write a story about a character who finds out that he or she is dying, has been knocking things off his/her bucket list, and has finally reached the last item. THE LETTER ALL WRITERS SHOULD WRITE Write a letter to a person who supported your writing career, whether that be a friend, a family member, a teacher (even one who influenced you at a very young age) or an author you’ve admired. Do you thank him? Do you blame her? Take the letter in any direction you want. I CAN’T BELIEVE I DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING Write a story that starts with the line “You’ll never get me to tell you where the jewels are,” and ends with the line, “I can’t believe I…

“Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.”—E.B. White “Grammar is a piano I play by ear, since I seem to have been out of school the year the rules were mentioned.”—Joan Didion “I don’t know the rules of grammar … If you’re trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language they use every day, the language in which they think. We try to write in the vernacular.”—“Father of Advertising” David Ogilvy…

Sheena Kamal 1 The Lost Ones (psychological thriller, July, William Morrow) “A woman discovers the daughter she’d given up for adoption years ago has gone missing, and now she must revisit her own dark past to solve the mystery of the girl’s disappearance.” WRITES FROM: I’m a bit of a nomad, but currently all of my stuff is in Vancouver [B.C.]. PRE-LOST ONES: I’d been trying to break into screen-writing for years, without much success. The Lost Ones was a way of proving to myself that I am a good writer, because I had begun to doubt myself. TIME FRAME: I wrote [the novel] in a mad frenzy that lasted about eight months. It’s my first, so I was figuring things out as I went along. I did a…

Dear Adriann, After reading your interview on the Guide to Literary Agents blog, I wanted to query you regarding my YA project, ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD (73,000 words). 1 Theseus Cassio Lowood, (called “Cas,” because who would want to be called “Theseus”), has inherited a strange vocation. He kills the dead. So did his father before him, until he was murdered by a ghost in Baton Rouge. Now, armed with his father’s mystical athame, Cas travels the country with his small, pale caravan—just him, his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow the legends, the local lore, aided by tips from others in the know, trying to keep up with the murderous dead, and keeping pesky things like the future, and friends, at bay. 2 When they arrive…

Not to be overly dramatic, but when I first spotted Tomi Adeyemi’s pitch and excerpt for Children of Blood and Bone, my heart stopped. Yes, I could tell from the opening pages that her voice was spot on, but I was even more entranced by the concept: a Black Lives Matter–inspired young adult fantasy set in a West African–inspired world. Nothing like this existed. I knew that if her voice remained as strong throughout as those first pages were, this manuscript would have every editor clamoring to publish something so unique, diverse and beautiful. After reading the full manuscript, I was so over the moon in love that I brought my colleague Alexandra Machinist on board as well. We hopped on the phone with Adeyemi in hopes of signing her—though…

Michael Connelly has compared the act of writing to surfing a wave. The metaphor also applies to Connelly’s career of late: The latest installment of his modern-day classic Harry Bosch crime novels, Two Kinds of Truth, hits bookstores this October; he has begun production on the fourth season of the acclaimed Amazon Video “Bosch” adaptation, with which he’s heavily involved; and he’s still riding the tide of his July novel, The Late Show, which launched a new series with a new protagonist, Hollywood detective Renée Ballard. Connelly is no stranger to the publishing ocean, though this new set of waves would challenge the balance and stamina of any master. His career began 25 years ago with publication of his first novel, The Black Echo—which introduced Los Angeles police homicide detective…

MAYGORN’S STORY Dear Carmala, You establish the setting right from the beginning—an important thing to do so that the reader can begin to orient herself in the scene, see the characters, experience their world—starting with this family’s dinner table conversation. When Del starts bragging about Maygorn, though, there’s an immediate, momentary disconnect: You’re telling the reader about his excitement rather than showing it through his body language and facial expression. Also, remember we’re inside of Maygorn as she observes him. How does she know that he’s excited? What’s he doing? Is he speaking loudly, his words running together? Can you show his excitement rather than tell us about it? The scene begins to flow smoothly as Maygorn’s mother expresses pride, leading May to glare at Del. Again, though, watch the…

1 F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Festival Immerse yourself in the art of literary success at this festival in the town where the Gatsby author is buried. WHEN: Oct. 21, 2017. WHERE: Richard Montgomery High School, Rockville, Md. PRICE: $35 (includes one workshop), plus additional workshops for $25 each. Lunch, $8. WHAT MAKES THE CONFERENCE UNIQUE: “Rockville [recognizes] its unique connections with America’s best-known author [through] writing, history and community,” festival committee member Pam Gates says. Related sessions include a discussion of the Fitzgerald collection I’d Die for You: And Other Lost Stories, and a presentation on the artwork of Zelda Fitzgerald. WHO IT’S PERFECT FOR: The festival is an economical choice for writers in the mold of Fitzgerald, and beyond. “We have increased our emphasis on students over the last…

Use WritersMarket.com to help you publish your work and get paid for your writing! • Search more than 8,000 listings for book publishers, magazines, contests, literary agents, greeting card publishers, screenwriting markets, playwriting markets, conferences, newspapers, online publications, syndicates and organizations.WritersMarket.com includes listings from Writer’s Market, Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market, Guide to Literary Agents, Children’s Writer’s and Illustrator’s Market and Poet’s Market. • Organize your publishing opportunities into personalized folders. • Manage your submissions with our easy-to-use record-keeping tool. • Learn how much to charge for your freelance writing projects with our “How Much Should I Charge?” rate chart. • Stay abreast of the latest publishing news with editor Robert Lee Brewer’s Market Watch updates. • Gain advanced publishing and marketing knowledge from our Q&As with industry experts.…

GLORIA KEMPTON (“‘Show Versus Tell’ Exemplified,” Page 54) is the author of nine nonfiction books and two young adult novels, as well as hundreds of short stories, essays and articles for national magazines. The former managing editor of a parenting magazine, she has also worked as a freelance book editor for 10 major publishers, including HarperCollins. Kempton coaches writers on every aspect of fiction, nonfiction, marketing and more, and can be found online at gloriakempton.com. CARI AND MARIE LAMBA (“Agent Myth Busters,” Page 32) are a mother-daughter agent duo at The Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency (jdlit.com). Marie represents children’s works, adult fiction and memoir, and is also the author of three YA novels and co-author of the picture book Green Green: A Community Gardening Story. Cari has worked as…

It’s 10 o’clock on Tuesday morning. Most people are hard at work trying to earn a living. I’m interviewing Katie, mother of three, who’s doing her best just to keep living. Katie is dying of ovarian cancer. She’s 27. She has three months left. Three months to agonize over what life might be like if her health care provider had approved appropriate chemotherapy treatment in a timely fashion. Katie’s goal now is to live till tomorrow. For me, tomorrow is just another day—Wednesday. I’ll be writing a brochure for an architectural firm. On Thursday, I’ll write an ad for a Fortune 500 company. And on Friday, I’ll draft a speech for an executive. I’ve been hired by a local health care facility to write the story explaining how it helped…

POETIC FORM: DIMINISHING VERSE Some poetic forms are mind-bendingly difficult—and certain poets love them for it. Other forms celebrate pure simplicity. Enter diminishing verse. Diminishing verse has no rules on rhymes, syllables, poem or stanza length. Poets just have one objective: Remove the first letter of the end word in the previous line. For example: • If Line 1 ends with the word “stray,” • then Line 2 would end with “tray,” • and Line 3 with “ray.” Here’s an example by a Poetic Asides reader. A Clearing in the Woods, by William Preston 1 Here, chickadees attired in dress as smart 2 as tuxedos from an upscale mart While this poem follows the rules strictly, some poets bend them by removing first sounds instead of letters—for instance, “braille” to…

Do you say, “The man who I called has already placed an order,” or, “The man whom I called has already placed an order”? If using who or whom (or whoever or whomever) troubles you, try the following method: Substitute he and him for who and whom to provide a mnemonic for remembering when you should use which pronoun. First, remember to look only at the clause (the set of words with a subject and its verb) associated with who or whom. Some sentences have only one clause, and that makes finding the right word easy. Often, though, a sentence h has more than one (an independent clause and one or more dependent clauses). Next, scramble the words of the clause (if you have to) so that the words form…

We literary agents do most of our work behind the scenes, advocating in unseen ways for our clients’ careers. While writers primarily know us as a channel to those coveted book deals, most never see the many other things we do, or how we operate day-to-day. Being uninformed might be holding your writing career back. Here, we dispel some of the more harmful myths about how agents work. 1. PITCHING TO AGENTS AT A CONFERENCE IS MY ONE BIG BREAK. Writers work themselves into a frenzy thinking that these in-person opportunities are their best chance. But here’s the truth: Your pitch session will likely result in the exact same result you’d get from a query letter—an agent either requesting pages, or not. So relax! You will still have many future…

Dear FYSA, Back in January, a literary review accepted two of my poems. But many months later I’ve yet to hear when they’ll be published. I’ve reached out to the editors once, just to make sure they received the requested audio recording of the poems (which they responded to more than a month later). I admit—I’m getting antsy. Is it a bad sign that they haven’t gotten in contact with me? Or is that normal? Would it be bad form to email them again? Yours, Calendar Girl Dear Calendar Girl, This question is important as I think it speaks to a larger publishing industry (and societal) issue: “ghosting.” The term refers to the abrupt severing of contact with someone without explanation—a practice made all too easy by a 21st-century communication…

THE CHILI IS NOT THE WHOLE CURRY Dear Sarah, Chapter 2 of your memoir, The Chili Is Not the Whole Curry, focuses on setting, establishing time and place as part of a flashback, and thus providing context for your unfolding story. You utilize sensory information—sight, sound, smell, touch, taste—and set it in motion to revivify life experience on the page. With that in mind, I’d like to focus this critique on how you might finesse your description to more effectively depict setting, tone and character. First, let’s examine the precision of details. Although you write descriptively, the details don’t always produce a complete visual imprint. For example, when I read the second sentence, I see a “portly security guard,” but aside from his general size I don’t specifically see him.…

CONFERENCE GUIDE OCTOBER 2017 • Keep in mind that there may be more than one workshop in each listing. • These workshops are listed alphabetically by state, country or continent. • Unless otherwise indicated, rates include tuition (T) only. Sometimes the rates also include airfare (AF), some or all meals (M), accommodations (AC), ground transportation (GT), materials (MT) or fees (F). • When you find workshops that interest you, be sure to call, email or check the website of the instructor or organization for additional information. • All listings are paid advertisements. CALIFORNIA  BCX™ BOOT CAMP EXTREME CREATIVE WRITING CONFERENCE, produced by West Coast Writers Conferences October 2017 Los Angeles, CA. Creative writing for serious authors of fiction, nonfiction, memoirs and short stories. The perfect pre-publication conference for every writer…

CUSTOM CLASSICS What would the most famous passages from literature look like with a little line editing? First, fill in the blanks on the left with the most creative words you can think of. Then transfer each part of speech to its corresponding numbered blank in the passage on the right. 1. a nickname or epithet: _________ 2. plural noun: ___________________ 3. verb: _________________________ 4. verb: _________________________ 5. adjective: _____________________ 6. adjective: _____________________ 7. noun (body part): ______________ 8. adjective: _____________________ 9. noun: ________________________ 10. plural noun: __________________ 11. noun (place): _________________ 12. verb (ending in –ing): __________ 13. noun (piece of clothing): _______ 14. noun: ________________________ SHARE A LAUGH: If your new additions form a particularly funny or poetic combination, post a photo of your doctored passage with the…