Janice Hardy's Blog, page 68

Writers: Give Your Creativity a Boost

By Shanna Swendson, @ShannaSwendson

Part of The Writer’s Life Series 

JH: We can't always tap into our creativity on demand, and it's a good idea to engage in activities that help refill our creative wells. This month, Shanna Swendson shares tips on boosting your creativity. 

Shanna Swendson earned a journalism degree from the University of Texas but decided it was more fun to make up the people she wrote about and became a novelist. She’s written a number of fantasy novels for teens and adults, including the Enchanted, Inc. series and the Rebel Mechanics series. She devotes her spare time to reading, knitting, and music.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

Take it away Shanna…
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

How to Write A Real-Page Turner, Part 3

By Laurisa White Reyes, @lwreyes

Part of the How They Do It Series 

JH: Laurisa White Reyes continues her How to Write a Page-Turner series today a sure-fire page-turner technique to keep readers hooked in your story.

Laurisa White Reyes is the Senior Editor of Skyrocket Press & Author Services. She has published sixteen books, including  8 Secrets to Successful Self-Publishing  and the SCBWI Spark Award winner  The Storytellers . Laurisa also provides personal coaching for writers. To connect with her, visit Skyrocket Press.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads |

Take it away Laurisa...

Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

First vs. Third Person: Choosing the Right Point of View for Your Novel

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

This week's Refresher Friday takes an updated look at choosing between a first and third person point of view and how point of view can even help with developing your characters. 

Point of view is one of the strongest tools a writer has in their toolbox, because a story can drastically change just by changing who's telling it and how they feel about those events. Like witnesses to an event who all see something different.

The wrong point of view can even hurt an otherwise great story, because a character might be too far from the story's events to make a good point of view character. They might even be too close and not able to give the proper perspective needed for that particular tale.

It's an important choice to make in any story.

Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

The Misunderstanding of Write What You Know

By Harrison Demchick, @HDemchick

Part of The Writer's Life Series

JH: Some writing advice has been around a long, long time, and write what you know is one of them. Harrison Demchick returns to the lecture hall today to share thoughts on how to make write what ypu know work for you.

Harrison Demchick came up as a book editor in the world of small press publishing, working along the way on more than seventy published novels and memoirs, several of which have been optioned for film. An expert in manuscripts as diverse as women’s fiction, literary fiction, mystery, young adult, science-fiction, fantasy, memoir, and everything in-between, Harrison is known for quite possibly the most detailed and informative editorial letters in the industry—if not the entire universe.

Harrison is also an award-winning screenwriter whose first feature film,  Ape Canyon , is currently in post-production. He’s the author of literary horror novel The Listeners (Bancroft Press, 2012), and short stories “Magicland” and “The Bead” appear, respectively, in literary magazines  Phantom Drift: A Journal of New Fabulism  (January 2019) and  The Hunger  (Winter 2019). He’s currently accepting new clients for book editing in fiction and memoir at the Writer’s Ally.

Take it away Harrison...Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

Writing and the Debut Author Experience

By Evan Ramzipoor @ER_Ramzipoor and Noelle Salazar @noelle_salazar 

Part of The Writer's Life Series

JH: We have something a little different and fun today. I don’t do many author interviews here, but from time to time, I have authors (and agents and editors), who interview each other.

Evan Ramzipoor and Noelle Salazar first met at Book Expo America: two wide-eyed first-time authors signing their World War II novels at the same table. Evan’s book The Ventriloquists , forthcoming on August 27, is about ragtag resistance fighters who risk everything to pull an elaborate prank on the Nazis. Noelle’s book The Flight Girls , which was released a few short weeks ago, follows a group of pilots in the Women Airforce Service Pilots program as they fight for their country and the people they love.

The two authors interviewed each other on the craft of writing and the debut author experience. 
Take it away Evan and Noelle…
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

Writing Emotional Truth—What Gets Us There?

By Bonnie Randall 

Part of the How They Do It Series 

JH: For many writers, (but not all), we want to tap into the emotional truth of our stories, and our characters. Bonnie Randall is back this month to share tips on getting to the emotional truth in our stories. 

Emotional truth. It is an indistinct quality; nebulous, indirect, and implicit between the lines of our prose. It is also—in my opinion—the difference between good writing and great writing. The contrast between cardboard, out-of-sync characters, and living, breathing beings with whom your relationship continues long after you’ve read the last page.

Emotional truth can be difficult to capture, and impossible to master, but there are tricks that can help make it easier to weave into your fiction.
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

How to Write Description Without Going Overboard

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Description helps brings a novel to life, but too much of it can choke the life right out of the story. Finding the right balance between description and dialogue can be tricky.

One wonderful and yet annoying aspect of writing, is that there’s no set formula for how much description is necessary. Description levels vary by genre and authors, and even readers have their preferences. Fans of poetically written literary novels typically enjoy richer descriptions than fans of fast-paced thrillers, for example.

How we choose to write the description also plays a role. That thriller can have just as many details in a scene as the literary novel, but how they’re woven into the story will be completely different. The author’s style and voice, as well as the genre’s style, influence the description.
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

Sunday Writing Tip: Make Sure Your Protagonist Isn’t a Perfect Mary Sue/Gary Stu Character

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, make sure your protagonist isn’t too perfect.
The Mary Sue/Gary Stu character is the one who always knows exactly what to do in any situation, has no flaws, no bad habits, and rarely runs into any real trouble—and when they do, events align just as they need them to to get out of it.

Too-perfect characters are boring to read about, because there is no struggle and no real conflict. Readers know very early on that whatever problem Mary or Gary face, they’ll overcome it with little to no effort. Most of the time, other characters go out of their way to help them, even if they have reason to.

Take some time today and make sure that things aren’t too easy for your protagonist, and that they do have flaws and issues that cause them to struggle to achieve their goals.

Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

Real Life Diagnostics: Would You Continue Reading This YA Fantasy?

Critique By Maria D'Marco

Real Life Diagnostics is a weekly column that studies a snippet of a work in progress for specific issues. Readers are encouraged to send in work with questions, and we diagnose it on the site. It’s part critique, part example, and designed to help the submitter as well as anyone else having a similar problem.

If you're interested in submitting to Real Life Diagnostics, please check out these guidelines. 

Submissions currently in the queue: One

Please Note: As of today, RLD slots are booked through August 3.

This week’s questions:

1. Would you continue reading?

2. Do you like the sentences?

3. Start of story good?

Market/Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

On to the diagnosis…
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com

Going All the Way: Should You Write the Whole Trilogy Before You Query?

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

This week's Refresher Friday dips back to an updated look at writing trilogies. 

There are two views on writing trilogies. Write only the first book and see if it sells, and write the whole thing before you start querying.

I hadn't intended to write a trilogy when I started The Shifter , but as I wrote closer to the ending, I realized the story could continue for a few more books. There was a bigger world with bigger problems to explore, if I wanted to follow along.

Which I did. So I pitched the novel as a stand-alone that could continue as a trilogy, and that's how we sold it. The two editors who'd wanted it--one wanted the trilogy, the other the stand alone book. This is a good example of how this could have gone either way.

Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com