Jennifer R. Hubbard's Blog, page 135

Helpful Hint for Agent Seekers

If you're looking for representation by an agent, this may have occurred to you already, but here's a helpful hint: Today's Agent Appreciation posts will give you a good idea who represents whom, and what these agents' clients are saying about them. Naturally your research will involve a lot more than just reading these posts, but it's not often such a nice morsel of research drops ready-made right onto one's plate!

Agent Appreciation Day

Several writers have declared December 11 Agent Appreciation Day. The Agent Appreciation headquarters is at the blog Lisa and Laura Write.

And here’s my post about Nathan Bransford of Curtis Brown!


It can be a little tricky to write a post for Agent Appreciation Day, because the agent-author relationship is a confidential one. My agent respects that confidentiality, and so do I.

Nevertheless, here are some things I believe I can reasonably share about him, which will give you a glimpse of wh...

Verse novels

It's the 10th, so my post today is over at AuthorsNow. It's about verse novels, and why you might want to try them if you haven't already. I was reluctant to try them at first, but fortunately I got over that, and now I'm hooked. An excerpt from my post: "I suppose I had some vague idea that they would be stuffy, or that a book constructed of poems would fail in the plot department. But ... these books are anything but dry. A verse novel is also, foremost, a novel; it has just as much of a...

Characters and revision

For me, the later drafts of a project involve going deeper and "rounder" with the characters, looking for more details, stripping away their defenses (and mine). Studying their motives, analyzing their hobbies and habits. I love it when characters surprise me, because then I can discover why they did what they did.

This is always much harder than I imagine it will be at the outset. I think I know my characters in the first draft, and then by the third draft I've identified blank spaces, flat a...

The wonderful world of brackets

It's amazing how many flaws a draft can acquire between the time we set it down and the time we pick it up again. I'm starting to revise a draft, and I would swear it was a brilliant piece of writing when I last closed the file a week ago. Computer elves must've gotten into the system and introduced those gaping plot holes and taken out some of the description. The wonderful story in my head doesn't seem to be all there on the page!

For now, I'm reading and marking up the draft, using brack...

2010 Debut Author Challenge

The Story Siren is hosting a Debut 2010 Author Challenge. You can follow the link in that previous sentence for full details, and to sign up to participate, but here are the basics:

"The objective is to read a set number of YA (Young Adult) or MG (Middle Grade) novels from debut authors published this year. I'm going to challenge everyone to read at least 12 debut novels! ... You don’t have to list your choices right away, but if you do feel free to change them throughout the year. ... Anyo...

The Great Villanelle Challenge

Today, I'm providing a link, but that link will lead you to several other places, and I encourage you to take the whole journey.

As Kelly Fineman explains in her blog, a group of writers were led in a special villanelle challenge by Liz Garton Scanlon: "The challenge was not simply to write any villanelle, but to use the words thanksgiving and friends in the first and third lines."

A villanelle is a specific form of poetry (you can read more about it on Kelly's blog), and just reading the rules...

Anatomy of a discarded project

I have a trunk novel. Actually, I have many, but I want to talk about one in particular today.

It was compelling enough for me to get through two, or possibly three, drafts (I don't quite remember now), but something was missing. And so this manuscript has never even made it off my desk and into the hands of my first critiquers, because I don't like to have a book critiqued until I've already corrected all the problems I can see myself.

With this book, I knew there was something wrong, but I ...

It's snowing books, and freezing butterflies

There are so many good book giveaways going on right now that I thought I'd do a roundup of the ones on my radar:

Seven Class of 2k9 books up for grabs at the Class of 2k10 blog, which just launched today. (Secret hint: the class will be giving away more books throughout December!)

A signed ARC of Jen Nadol's book The Mark, over at the Tenners blog.

An ARC of Steve Brezenoff's book, The Absolute Value of -1, signed by several Tenners.

"A taste of summer for a winter's night," at the blog of Sarah...

Struts & Frets

Another debut2009 launch announcement! Out now: Jon Skovron's Struts & Frets, a YA novel from Amulet. Synopsis: A high school kid tries to start an indie rock band while coping with his grandfather's Alzheimer's.

(My editorial comment about the title: Don't you love the double meaning--words that can be nouns or verbs?)

Today Jennifer Jabaley, author of Lipstick Apology, has more info about the book, and a brief interview with Jon Skovron, up on her blog. It's worth checking out, and not jus...