Innehållsförteckning för January/February 2024 från Writer's Digest

I’ve always had the same predicament. When I’m home, in Kentucky, all I want is to leave. When I’m away, I’m home-sick for a place that never was. —Groundskeeping, Lee Cole (literary fiction) “There is in each of us a fundamental split between what we think we know and what we know but may never be able to think.” —Inheritance, Dani Shapiro (memoir) Lee’s love felt easy. Light on her skin, fresh on her tongue, the first drizzle of the monsoon, and just as dependable. It felt fueled by itself, not a mold he wanted to pour her into like molten silver. Oscar had been able to love her without reservation because he knew he could never have her. Who was it that said, “The only kind of love that…

Narratives have at least one clear protagonist whose point of view informs our experience of the story, carrying our thoughts, emotions, and hopes or expectations for the conclusion. While these characters may receive the bulk of the focus, secondary characters can make or break the story as much as the protagonist(s). DEFINING SECONDARY CHARACTERS Secondary characters may not carry the plot or drive the action in the way a main character does, but they still play a key part in a satisfying story. It’s important to think of them not as mere placeholders or vehicles to progress the plot, but in terms of their relationship with the main character. They may take on a range of roles, such as: • Antagonist or someone who presents an obstacle or challenge• Sidekick/squad/crew,…

Very few writers know their worth when they dive into the frigid waters of freelancing. I certainly didn’t—when I launched my freelance career, I was one of those poor souls who was absolutely astounded that someone would actually pay me to write something. My first writing jobs paid me so little that a more rational person would have immediately spruced up their résumé and looked for a job in fast food. But like a lot of writers, I felt like I was getting away with something every time I got paid to write. It’s my favorite activity1—I do plenty of it on my own time for free—and I still struggle with the irrational fear that someone will eventually notice I’m getting paid for it and launch some kind of investigation.…

Rebecca Boyle Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are (Nonfiction, January, Random House) “Our Moon is a history of humanity’s relationship to Earth’s satellite, showing how the Moon has influenced everything from the length of the day to the evolution of life to the origins of human culture, religion, and science.” WRITES FROM: Colorado Springs, Colo. PRE-MOON: I am a science journalist, and I often write about planetary science and astrophysics for magazines. I realized I had a lot more to say about the Moon than I could fit into articles, so I developed a book proposal, with the help of my wonderful agent. TIME FRAME: This book would probably have been done two years earlier if not for…

Aside from beleaguered adverbs and the wrongfully character-assassinated semicolon, few elements of storytelling are as often maligned as the poor, misunderstood prologue. Writers are told that agents and editors won’t read a submission that starts with a prologue … that readers skip over them or pass on books that begin with them … that the holiest of holies of writing advice is this: Never, ever use a prologue. Prologues got a lot of haters. And yet, thumb through a handful of published titles, and chances are solid that no small percentage of them feature this pariah of a prelude. How are all these authors getting away with that allegedly egregious breach of good storytelling and good taste? It’s because skilled storytellers know this secret writing truth: A good prologue, well…

Is it time for round two? If your book is out of print or placed with the wrong publisher, you may be considering finding a new home for it. This happens in a variety of situations: • Sales have dropped.• You want to release a new edition.• The working relationship has deteriorated.• The publisher has gone out of business or sold.• You don’t feel the publisher is doing enough to promote the book. (Caution: Authors almost always feel their publisher is not doing enough to promote their book.) First, examine why you want to put your book back in print or switch publishers. Has the topic been in the news? Are there new research findings? Are your subsequent books doing well? If it’s pre-publication, be sure you have realistic expectations…

Book authors have to hook readers twice. Like all other writers, authors have to hook readers with the writing in their books. But they also have the additional challenge of hooking readers before they ever crack open the spine or open the digital file. Authors have to write hooks for their books. Also known as elevator pitches, these book hooks have to intrigue agents, editors, and ultimately readers to give the book a chance. There are a few common strategies for writing effective pitches included below along with 25 recent book hooks that got me interested in adding titles to my own TBR (to-beread) list. Plus, I’ve shared multiple genres to model how you might write your own book hooks in the future. KEEP IT SHORT AND SWEET The prototypical…

As a freelance picture book editor, my inbox is flooded daily with pleas from authors who need to know how to fix a mistake they made without spending a fortune. The truth is, not every mistake is easily fixable. But many of them are avoidable. Below are the top 10 mistakes I see authors making—and how to avoid them! 1. NOT HIRING AN EDITOR (OR HIRING AN EDITOR AT THE WRONG TIME) Picture books are short—usually fewer than 700 words—so it’s easy to see why new authors might believe they don’t need an editor. The reality of the situation, though, is that the slight word count makes hiring an editor even more important. It’s not uncommon for a manuscript to change dramatically in the editing process. But in order to…

Hook Your Readers If you take a minute to think about the things that catch your attention, they’re usually out-sized (Michelangelo’s David or the Pyramids of Giza), extraordinarily intricate (a mosaic made of tiny tiles or a well-composed song), boldly colored (peacock feathers or a Times Square billboard), or shocking (a bolt of lightning or a twist ending). For me, these attention-grabbing things make me curious: How did they do that? Why is it like this? Where did the idea come from, or what made this happen? From these questions come infinite story possibilities. From those ideas, though, we have to eventually whittle them down to the ones worth telling, the ones that will grab and keep our readers’ attention. This issue looks at that challenge from a variety of…

If you are struggling with titling your essays and articles, it’s important to realize a good title is vital—it can make the difference between an editor reading your piece and relegating it to the slush pile. A little-known secret: Often, an editor will assign on the basis of a compelling headline that displays an angle that makes it stand out, even if the pitch isn’t fully fleshed out. Even better if the title evokes emotion or even anger. I love a good alliterative title, that also plays on words such as a piece I wrote for Writer’s Digest, “Polishing Your Prose: Tips for Self-Editing,” or my student’s title “Seoul Searching in San Francisco” in Bloomberg (which plays on the words soul and Seoul, evoking a journey and a spiritual quest).…

Every author wants to do right by their book. They want to give their book the best chance to be seen and sold. Desire and action, however, are two very different prospects. When it comes to book marketing, authors shy away. Why? Three reasons: 1. It’s too soon! 2. It’s intimidating!  3. It’s scary! If authors can take the leap from writer to book marketer, their book sales will soar, their publishers will be thrilled, and their coffers will overflow. Specific ideas and strategies to promote and market books can be found in other resources. This article focuses on changing the author’s mindset. Let’s take the reasons why authors resist book marketing one by one and offer ways to overcome the resistance. 1. AUTHORS FEEL THAT THEY ARE SIMPLY NOT…

Tan Twan Eng The House of Doors, my third novel, is set in 1910 and 1921. One of its protagonists is W. Somerset Maugham, who is traveling around Malaya, at that time a British colony. Still recovering from ill health following a misadventure, Maugham accepts an invitation to spend two weeks recuperating at his old friend’s home by the sea on the island of Penang. The famous writer is accompanied by his “secretary,” a rogue called Gerald Haxton. Aside from Maugham and Haxton, two other historical figures feature in my novel: Dr. Sun Yat Sen, the Chinese revolutionary conspiring to bring down the monarchy in China; and Ethel Proudlock, the first Englishwoman in Malaya charged with murder. On my book tour in the U.K., people have remarked that it must…

Thematic writing enables your readers to enjoy your story on a deeper level by encouraging them to think about big issues, to reflect on their lives and beliefs. By selecting a theme, and then integrating symbols and allegory that support the theme, you’ll add dimension and vitality to your writing. For many writers, though, identifying your theme isn’t easy. Sometimes, of course, your theme is clear and purposeful—you set out to write about family values, bullying, independent decision-making, or another big idea. Other times, the theme only becomes apparent as you draft your story, or even after it’s finished. Occasionally, even after you’re done, you have no sense at all of your theme or whether you have one. If that’s your situation, ask yourself if this lack of clarity comes…

Michael Cunningham writes for an audience, but it’s not the audience you’d expect. The typical piece of writing advice is to “write the book you’d want to read,” but an experience Cunningham had while working at the Boom Boom Room in Laguna Beach between getting his BA and his MFA made him consider what would make his older co-worker Helen pick up a book. A single mom of three trouble-prone children working multiple jobs, Helen was “a huge reader” according to Cunningham. “At the end of every long, hard day, she would get into bed and read for an hour. That’s what she was moving toward … ” After recommending she read Crime and Punishment, “as only a pretentious 22-year-old could,” her assessment of the novel (“it was pretty good”)…

Myrsini Stephanides spent the first 10 years of her career as a nonfiction editor and book packager. She was at a crossroads when invited to join the Carol Mann Agency, becoming an agent and operations manager from 2009–2021. “It was upon moving to the agency side of the industry that I felt truly in my element, as I had some of my first big deals—The Oatmeal, Pusheen—right out of the gate once my creative and entrepreneurial spirit was fully unleashed.” She founded Arc in 2021. “There’s a paradigm shift afoot within our industry,” says Stephanides. “Some changes are a direct response to the challenges the pandemic foisted on us; others are the result of the industry beginning to hold itself accountable for long-standing practices and operational models that are inequitable…

Opening lines—get them right … or else! Or else your readers won’t want to keep reading. This means that your novel, memoir, story, or essay won’t get published or won’t reach many readers. Yikes! That reads like the opening to a horror story for writers, doesn’t it? But that’s too much pressure, at least in the initial drafting and creating stage. So, let’s relieve some of that pressure. First, let’s examine an opening that shows up on “best opening” lists, almost without fail: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness … ” and so on, in the opening to A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. His classic opening is beautiful, setting…

Frontlist Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang (Riverhead Books, Literary/Speculative Fiction, September 2023) SYNOPSIS: Set sometime in the future, pollution has dramatically increased in the world, inducing significant changes in the climate and rendering most crops ungrowable. Food manufactured from gray mung bean flour is essentially just for sustenance, not flavor or enjoyment. So, when an opening for a chef at a highly secretive research community high in the mountains somewhere along the border of France and Italy appears, the narrator lies about who she is to get the job. Her willingness to pretend to be someone else is actually a selling point for her future employer and it won’t be the last time her identity is in question. As the chef starts to feel more and…

FIRST LINE MATCH-UP DIRECTIONS: Match the first line of the book to the title and author. 1. “There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who live with shame, and those who die from it.” 2. “The circumstances of Denny Tran’s death were so violent that most people in Cabramatta were too spooked to attend his funeral.” 3. “Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley.” 4. “When I was born, the name for what I was didn’t exist.” 5. “Almost plummeting to my death before a stadium full of screaming people is a warning sign, in an endless parade of warning signs lately, that I need more sleep.” 6. “It’s all cornfields from this side of the bus.”…

TAN TWAN ENG was born in Penang and lived in various places in Malaysia as a child. His first novel, The Gift of Rain, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. His second, The Garden of Evening Mists, was a major international bestseller, shortlisted for the Man Booker, and the winner of the Man Asian Literary Prize and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. It was adapted into an award-winning film in 2019 directed by Tom Lin. His third novel, The House of Doors, was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2023 and was published in the U.S. in October 2023. Twan divides his time between Malaysia and South Africa. KATE MEADOWS (KateMeadows.com) is a creative nonfiction writer and freelance editor with an MFA in professional writing. Along with writing…

5 WAYS TO HOOK READERS WITH POEMS Poems are such versatile things. They can be as concise as a well-written line but also long enough to fill an entire book. Poems rhyme except when they don’t, and they follow rules except when they won’t. Poetry is beautifully chaotic. While I agree that poetry doesn’t easily conform to a formula (even with poetic forms), I also believe there are a few obvious and maybe less obvious places poets can “hook their readers.” The Title The title of a poem can serve many purposes, and for some poems, it is the first opportunity to hook a reader. For instance, these titles hooked me before I read the first line of each poem: • “My Mother Dreams Another Country” by Natasha Trethewey• “Us,…

Kiss You Back, Doctor Know, The Singapore Stunt (Contemporary small-town romance) WHY SELF-PUBLISH? I enjoy the fact that I can write in multiple series at the same time and collaborate with other authors in anthologies and shared worlds easily. I’ve had the honor of participating in several fundraising anthologies raising money for such causes as United Help Ukraine, A Book A Day Scholarship Fund, and the National Pancreatic Cancer Foundation. WISH I’D KNOWN: I thought networking could occur later after I had a finished book. The indie author community, especially in romance, is super-supportive. Connecting with other authors and industry professionals early in your journey can save a lot of heartache, provide some much-needed perspective, and help keep your creative cup filled. I’ve been fortunate to connect with many kind and…

Born and raised in Nashville, Tenn., Sophie Cudd has a degree in English literature from Southern Methodist University. She also studied Shakespeare at the University of Oxford and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. After nearly four years at William Morris Endeavor (now known as Endeavor), Cudd joined The Book Group in 2023. “I adore storytelling, in all its forms, but the written word has always been my favorite,” Cudd says. “Growing up, I was one of those kids who had their nose in a book all the time (and still do). I find it so fulfilling to ‘midwife’ new stories into the world, to champion writers and their stories. It’s dynamic and meaningful in such a distinct way.” You can find Cudd online at TheBookGroup.com. SEEKING “I’m primarily…

When we think of “structure” in writing, we often imagine rigid rules, like a throwback to high school English. But creative nonfiction (the practice of telling true stories using conventions of fiction such as plot and character development) invites us to think outside the box. A lyric essay is a type of creative nonfiction that fuses personal essay with poetry to tell a powerful story or reinforce a primary message. The beauty of the lyric essay is that its structure can look vastly different. The structure is important, but it isn’t always straightforward. The malleability of the lyric essay allows us as writers to examine our subjects from various layers and angles as we seek to effectively tell our stories. Here are five ways to craft your lyric essay, along…

I’ve been fortunate to read a fantasy novel that one of my friends is working on, and at the very start of the story, the main character arrives on an island via trading ship. One of the very first scenes is set in the marketplace built right next to the piers. It’s a great scene where we get to see how different this new place is from where she’s been before—the food, culture, and even petty criminals are all pieces of information that filter in as the character is introduced to her new environment. Even though your story might not be centered on a trader, you might find it useful to utilize a trading structure to provide this kind of world-building. Trade, put simply, is the exchange of goods and…