Innehållsförteckning för March/April 2023 från Writer's Digest

Start With a Scene These are the things I didn’t know: When you first wake up in a dark wooden box, you’ll tell yourself this isn’t happening. You’ll push against the lid, of course. No surprise there. You’ll beat at the sides with your fists, pummel your heels against the bottom. You’ll bang your head, again and again, even though it hurts. And you’ll scream. You’ll scream and scream and scream. —Find Her, Lisa Gardner (Thriller) Leaflets: At dusk they pour from the sky. They blow across the ramparts, turn cartwheels over rooftops, flutter into the ravines between houses. Entire streets swirl with them, flashing white against the cobbles. Urgent message to the inhabitants of this town, they say. Depart immediately to open country. —All the Light We Cannot See,…

Urban fantasy is one of the hottest fantasy subgenres. Set in contemporary times, usually in a big city, the genre features kick-butt heroes and heroines with magical powers, supernatural creatures, a seedy paranormal underbelly, and other common fantasy tropes that readers know and love. Examples of classic urban fantasy series include The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher, the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs, and The October Daye Books by Seanan McGuire. Urban fantasy is a vast, competitive genre that requires proper knowledge and skill to satisfy readers. It is a misconception that urban fantasy only features female main characters—while the majority are female, there are many male-driven stories too. I have been writing urban fantasy since 2014. I have written more than a dozen novels in the genre.…

Set a timer for two minutes and write a short story that features the first object listed. After the two minutes are up, set the timer for another two minutes and continue the story by working in the next object. Keep going in two-minute increments until all five objects are included. The objects don’t have to play a significant role in the story; they could be minor things seen in passing. The goal here is to get your imagination working, to not pass judgment on what you write, and to get warmed up for your regular writing session. There are seven sets of objects so you can write one story per day of the week. 1 1. A mint2. A flower3. A pair of shoes4. A calendar5. A phone 2…

I’ve always had somewhat of a genre problem, and I don’t think I’m alone. Not every book fits tidily into one category. Many novels have elements of various genres. I wanted my book to be unique, and for this reason, I rejected the “know your genre” advice. It’s a simple concept (if you fit in neatly), but I couldn’t understand why it mattered. My thinking was, If someone likes your book, what difference does genre make? Then I published my debut and the importance of fitting into a specific book category rang like a wakeup call. Genre, it turns out, plays a huge role in marketing. First and foremost, it’s a jumping-off point. Readers are naturally attracted to specific types of books—and as a new author, I didn’t know how…

Kara Gnodde The Theory of (Not Quite) Everything (Book club fiction, February, HarperCollins) “Mimi is the devoted sister of genius mathematician Art, who has agreed to help her find love if she follows his strict mathematical plan—but life and love don’t work like that.” WRITES FROM: Hampshire in the U.K., and a lot of time in London and in South Africa when I can. PRE-THEORY: My first book was like a jumper knitted with no pattern. Too many arms.… I spent a month experimenting—writing fresh, unrelated scenes daily, before starting the Faber six-month novel writing course. One scene with these siblings… hovered in my imagination, taking up more and more space. TIME FRAME: The first draft took me 11 months write.… an editor told me I had a good skeleton,…

During a commercial break for an episode of “American Horror Stories,” a GEICO insurance commercial comes on. We see a group of young adults, all of them familiar archetypes in their dress and personalities. They are hiding from a Jason/Leatherface/Michael Myers type of character who is wielding a chainsaw. The group, in their feeble efforts to escape their masked assailant, make bad choice after bad choice, even electing to steer clear of an empty, running car they could have used to get away and instead running into a shed full of rusty blades hanging from the ceiling, all the while the would-be killer is shaking his head at the ridiculousness of it all. The commercial is hilarious, even if you are not a horror fan. But if you are a…

If you ask Neal Hutcheson how long it took him to create his book, The Moonshiner Popcorn Sutton, the answer could be two years, or it could be 20 years. It depends on the framing. By trade, Hutcheson is an Emmy Award–winning documentary filmmaker whose works are focused on “documenting heritage in transition,” and it was the work he did on one such film—2004’s Mountain Talk about language and culture in Southern Appalachia—that introduced him to the man would ultimately become the subject of several additional documentaries: Popcorn Sutton. Hutcheson filmed and interviewed Sutton extensively about Sutton’s illegal moonshine distilling and distribution business until Sutton’s death in 2009, and it’s from those experiences that this book was created. “The purpose of this book,” Hutcheson writes in his introduction, “was—in the…

Interviews are a vital aspect of nonfiction writing. Depending on the topic, freelancers may turn to subject matter experts or everyday people with unique experiences, knowledge, or opinions to help inform the articles they write. Over the course of my career, I have uncovered five specific questions that can be extremely helpful in getting the most out of potential sources. While not applicable to every interview, these questions can help add detail, color, and heft to our work. 1. WHAT WAS YOUR INSPIRATION? Inspiration is the creative spark that leads to great things, the “aha!” moment when the abstract suddenly takes form. It strikes writers, musicians, researchers, and more—anyone striving to create, build, or innovate. Almost every important accomplishment has started with a moment of inspiration, and it behooves writers…

EXPLAIN IT BADLY DIRECTIONS: Do you know your literary genres well enough to spot the genres described by these (very bad) explanations? Write in your guesses below the descriptions before checking the answer key at the bottom of the page. 1. Wizards and chosen ones and pseudo-European medieval settings, oh my! 2. Something interesting is happening, probably during WWII. Or maybe during the Regency era. The Ancient Greeks seem popular too. 3. Lots of people are going to die. Probably in a remote forest, creepy house, or maybe a grave-yard or two. 4. Someone’s been murdered—but never fear! The lonely, alcoholic, obsessive detective is on the case. 5. The aliens are coming, the aliens are coming! 6. They meet. They hate each other. No, wait—that’s just tension. They fall in love.…

I’ve admitted this before, but I’ll admit it again here as long as you promise to keep reading: I used to be a book snob. I thought literary fiction was the only fiction worth seriously reading, writing, or talking about. It’s not that I avoided genre fiction; it’s just that I thought of it as a guilty pleasure and didn’t really tell anyone I was reading it. Sometimes, I went to great lengths to hide what I was reading (like when I hid a Star Wars mass-market paperback inside of a larger, more literary novel). But, things have changed—and for the better! I still love reading literary fiction, but I proudly find joy in reading genre fiction of all kinds. It’s no longer a guilty pleasure—it’s just a pleasure. After…

I recently did an interview after the publication of my second book, Anywhere You Run. The interviewer was quite nice, and the questions posed were insightful. But just before the end of the discussion, the interviewer made a comment that stopped me in my tracks: “Your writing is so good, you could write literary fiction.” There it was. The phantom monster of my mystery/thriller writing career. The belief that writers of genre novels cannot write what is usually considered serious writing—literary fiction. As if genre fiction is a second-class citizen to literary fiction. I came to write mysteries and thrillers for two reasons. First, I simply love the genre. I love the idea of figuring out a puzzle along with the protagonist of the story. But I also write mysteries…

WHY PEOPLE DON’T WRITE FOR THEIR READERS Have you ever noticed that people only read things they want to read? It doesn’t matter if the content is important, even life-changing, you simply can’t make people read books and stories that don’t interest them. You may think what you’ve written is irresistible, but if it isn’t finding its audience, perhaps you need to rethink your approach. Many writers write for themselves, to satisfy their own interests or needs. Some authors write for its therapeutic value; others to memorialize their own or their family’s stories; and still others write to serve the public good. All these reasons are worthy, but if you want to be traditionally published, you need to set aside these personal motivations and write with your readers in mind.…

Women’s fiction has always been a genre that’s hard to pin down. The label evolved to broadly describe stories of interest to women, and throughout literary history, it’s been called everything from “domestic fiction” to “sentimental fiction” to “chick lit” and even to “glitz fiction.” In the past, it’s often been lumped in with romance, but a decade ago, the Romance Writers of America (RWA) disowned the genre when they decided that women’s fiction stories didn’t fall under their umbrella. The Women’s Fiction Writers Association soon formed to offer them safe harbor, but even its founders struggled to define the term when they created the organization in 2013. Late last year, Publishers Marketplace rode the crest of a seemingly growing wave by formally dropping the classification, moving stories previously considered…

Grand Prize The Moonshiner Popcorn Sutton by Neal Hutcheson Early Readers/Children’s Picture Books First Place The Impossible Sleepover by Amy Sharp Honorable Mentions Valentina Valente, She Is My Dad by Adriana Devers Dinosaurs Living in MY Hair! An Underwater Adventure by Jayne M. Rose-Vallee Genre Fiction First Place Last Blue Christmas by Rose Prendeville Honorable Mentions Duck Duck Gator by Ken Wheaton The Devil Whispered by Shawn Starkweather Blurring Reality by R. D. Chapman Legends of the Circle by Stephen J. Galgon Just Like Magic by Ellie Roth The Crittenton Girls by Joanne Simon Tailele A Distant Light by Lorraine Solheim The Case of the Copper King by MK McClintock A Small Hotel by Suanne Laqueur Inspiration First Place To Survive Caregiving: A Daughter’s Experience, A Doctor’s Advice, 2nd ed. by…

Usually, I share magazines or online publications in this column, but the world of publishing is much broader than that. So, let’s look at a few interesting book publishers this time around. Books usually have many more words than a magazine article—though a few of the following publishers accept lower word counts. Likewise, the submission and publication processes are usually more involved, because of the time and money invested in one piece of writing. However, books (even digital books) tend to have a longer “shelf” life because of the time that everyone puts into the project. And the people who read books tend to get more invested in the author and their work moving forward, which is probably why so many writers aspire to be published book authors. Here are…

WANDA M. MORRIS (WandaMorrisWrites.com) is the acclaimed author of All Her Little Secrets which won the 2022 Lefty Award for Best Debut Mystery Novel and 2022 Georgia Author of the Year for Best First Novel. All Her Little Secrets has been optioned for a one-hour limited series on Showtime executive produced by and starring Emmy-award winning actress Uzo Aduba. Her new book, Anywhere You Run, was named one of the Best Books of 2022 by Publishers Weekly and NPR. Wanda is a corporate attorney, a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and Crime Writers of Color, and serves on the Board of International Thriller Writers. She is married, the mother of three, and lives in Atlanta, Ga. TIFFANY YATES MARTIN (FoxPrintEditorial.com) is a 30-year career book editor and…

IS IT POSSIBLE TO WRITE GENRE POETRY? This Poetic Asides column has covered many poetic forms over the years, but a poetic form is not a genre. The difference between a sestina (or 39-line poem that uses six alternating end words) and a sonnet (14-line poem with a rhyme scheme) is like the difference between a novel and a short story—or a feature article and a sidebar. Both are different forms that could be in the same genre. That is, the novel and short story could both be science fiction, and the sestina and sonnet could both be love poems. So, if a poetic form isn’t a genre of poetry, is it possible to write genre poetry? The simple answer is, of course. I mentioned one genre of poetry already:…

90+ books including: Ante Up, Equivalent Exchange, Behind the Scenes, Love Notes, Wonder (Romance in nearly all the subgenres, mostly contemporary) WHY SELF-PUBLISH? I chose to self-publish because I love the freedom of giving exactly what I want to the world, when I want to give it. My only limits and deadlines are self-imposed, which means I have very few lines to color inside of—which can sometimes be a double-edged sword, but I’ve grown quite accustomed to it. HAD YOU CONSIDERED TRADITIONAL PUBLISHING? I did, and still sometimes do consider traditional publishing. I think there are many benefits—marketing, budgeting, not having to do it all yourself, to name a few. For me, those benefits did not outweigh the pros I saw with self-publishing 10 years ago. My view of both paths is…

FINEPRINT LITERARY MANAGEMENT Zach Honey was born in North Carolina and raised in Montana “with an equal love for sweet tea and waist-deep snow,” he says. He studied film production and philosophy at Montana State University and received a master’s degree from the University of Nottingham in England. Honey joined FinePrint Literary in 2020 and became an associate agent in 2022. He has published several short stories. “I love talking plot and making stories work,” Honey says. “I can discuss why events don’t make sense, question character motivations, speak to craft choices for days. I love getting into story debates with authors about things that in the end are all made up.” Honey is seeking thrillers set in rural or hard-to-reach places such as the Rocky Mountains, American South, and…

Every genre has a relatively unique signature or style that readers come to expect, known as voice and tone, which make it possible to identify the genre within a few pages. Voice is like the personality of your character leaping off the page, and tone is how you want people to feel when they read your book. Nailing your genre’s voice and tone will not only make sure you’re meeting readers’ expectations, but it can increase your chance of publication. We’ll explore what these two terms mean, with illustrations from contemporary fiction. VOICE EMERGES FROM CHARACTER Voice has become something of a buzzword that you might find confusing, but in literature, it refers to the mixture of vocabulary, tone, point of view, and syntax that makes phrases, sentences, and paragraphs…

Everyone views the world through a different lens, but some of our lenses aren’t lenses at all—they’re electron microscopes or foggy windows. They’re high-def digital processors or layered mirrors. Neurodivergence offers a unique worldview but it can also create challenges when it comes to getting words on the page. Perhaps that is why genre fiction serves as a magnet for neurodivergent writers. Something about the openended nature of speculative fiction particularly seems to attract writers whose brain chemistry functions outside the norm. It offers a safe space to follow our impulses and explore the ways we make connections while also offering defined parameters of genre to serve as guideposts along the way. Ellie Raine, Writer’s Digest award-winning fantasy author of the NecroSeam Chronicles, has been diagnosed with OCD, ADHD, and…

Every author has their unique approach to writing: Whether they start with a theme, character, or plot, the page is where their story blooms to life. As a contemporary fantasy author, Holly Black finds joy in writing the kinds of things she loves to read. “As a person who thought of myself as kind of a weirdo growing up,” she says, “it has been an immense surprise and a great pleasure to find out that the stuff I like is also the stuff other people like. And sometimes the weirder the stuff is that I like and then I put out there, the more people actually do resonate with it.” She isn’t wrong. In her career so far, she’s published more than 30 fantasy novels for middle-grade, young adult, and…

Seasoned literary agents on the business of publishing. GENRES: Nonfiction—self-help, spiritual, metaphysical, and health. CLIENTS INCLUDE: Elaine Clayton, Jessie Asya Kanzer, Amy Leigh Mercree, Sally K. Norton, Nick Redfern, Dean Sluyter, Wayne White, Judy Wilkins-Smith. Is it your dream to work with an agent? You might be surprised to learn that agents have dreams too. “Each project feels like a dream project as I am working on it,” says Lisa Hagan, who founded her own agency in 2002. “This makes all of my friends laugh, but I had a dream that I was working with Blake Shelton on his memoir, and I thought that would be great fun.” Hagan’s mother was also a literary agent (Paraview Literary), with Hagan running her accounting department. “I saw her joy and frustration with…

Every aspect of writing prose offers both challenges and joys. Beginnings: the challenge of deciding where in the story to begin, yet the joy of starting a new project. Endings: the challenge of wrapping up storylines, yet the joy of completing a huge undertaking. Middles: the challenge of keeping characters moving and readers turning pages, while balancing the premise with new twists, while keeping track of all the facts and details already introduced, while keeping “the end” in mind. Yet the joy of… the joy of… the joy of… Huh. Just what joy does writing the middle of a project offer? Often, writers refer to this struggle as the “saggy middle.” But since that suggests other saggy middles (I’m eying my own middle as I write this) and we’re all…

Ani Di Franco has never shied away from a challenge. In 1990, five years after becoming an emancipated minor at age 15, the Grammy Award–winning singer/songwriter released her eponymous debut album on her own record label, Righteous Babe Records. Now, more than 30 years, 22 studio albums, a book of poetry, and a New York Times–bestselling memoir later, she’s tackling a new endeavor: authoring children’s books. On March 7, Rise x Penguin Workshop, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers, will publish The Knowing, Di Franco’s debut picture book. Featuring art by first-time illustrator Julia Mathew, the book is written as a rhyming lullaby and is designed to be read or sung; a companion song performed by Di Franco is available for purchase through RighteousBabe.com. The book is the first in…

If you’re anything like us, there are so many new books that come out each month (or week!) that it’s hard to keep up. In this new column, we’ll shine light on a backlist title (something published more than six months ago) that you might have missed, alongside a new release that we don’t want you to miss out on now. Sometimes, like in this inaugural column, we’ll feature works by the same author, and other times, we’ll feature books that are by different authors but are part of the same conversation or pair well with each other and the issue’s theme. This time we’ll look at two middle-grade books whose events are spaced two years apart, enabling readers to watch the title character mature from pre-teen to teenager. Backlist…

CALIFORNIA ANNUAL CALIFORNIA CREATIVE WRITERS CONFERENCE™, produced by West Coast Writers Conferences. March 3–5, 2023 if in person, March 3–8 if virtual, 2023. Writers of all genres and disciplines will benefit from this educational and inspirational conference focused on the craft and business of writing. Our 34th event will feature creative writing programs for fiction & nonfiction, as well as genre writers, from our popular Genre-LA™ event for Speculative Fiction, and an expanded track for screenwriters. CCWC will include workshops for the 3-A’s™ (Aspiring, Active, and Accomplished) writers of fiction, nonfiction, and screenplay. Topics will be presented by 40+ literary agents, editors, scouts, veteran educators, publishers, bestselling authors, and industry professionals in progressive tracks of workshops, and panels. Reserve one-on-one pitch meetings with literary agents and publishers looking for new talent…