Jane Friedman's Blog: Jane Friedman, page 8

New imprint at Penguin: Berkeley XO

The adult-YA crossover imprint will publish fiction only, combining talent from Penguin’s Berkley and Penguin Young Readers imprints.

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New imprint: Bite Books

HarperCollins has partnered with Fox Entertainment on a food imprint, Bite Books, an extension of Fox’s brand Bite.

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New imprint: Medill Books

Agate Publishing has partnered with Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism to publish reported, short-length nonfiction books.

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Google launches Offerwall

The feature allows websites to give readers a variety of ways to access content—such as watching ads, making a micropayment, and more.

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Links of Interest: July 16, 2025

The latest in traditional publishing, trends, the creator economy, culture & politics, and AI.

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What Does It Mean to Write and Publish a Viral Article?

Photo by Nadine Marfurt on Unsplash

Today’s post is by novelist and freelance writer Rebecca Morrison. Join us on Thursday, July 31, for the free class What Happens When Your Piece Goes Viral?

What does it mean to have a piece go viral?

To tell you the truth, I don’t know. There are different definitions out there, but not everyone agrees on what it means for a piece to go viral.

Here’s the story behind my three essays, and why I give them that label.

My first piece was what I’d call traditionally viral. I’d never written for a national publication and didn’t know what to expect. The day it came out on HuffPost, it shot to the number one trending story on Apple News. It went to number one again when they republished it the next year. was about my immigrant experience and what it means to have someone question your belonging. The writing was average at best. But it struck a chord. I’m convinced what made it go so wide was the last few defiant sentences about how we’re all American equally, whether our families have been here for hundreds of years or we’ve become American in another way. That piece has been viewed over 3 million times. It was like everyone that felt like an outsider because of their ethnicity sent it to anyone they’d ever met.

The next ones were different in terms of their viral-ness.

The second essay was about my complicated, sometimes dark mother-daughter relationship. It was published on Today.com. I shared the story of the pressure my mother put on me to be thin when I was young. And how it took years for us to come to a place of healing even if it wasn’t perfect or finished. The piece stayed at the top of their homepage the entire day, right next to Met Gala coverage and celebrity gossip, which is extremely unusual for a no-name writer’s personal essay. Several months later, the editor told me it had been one of their most-read essays for months. They republished it multiple times on their Facebook page. On one of the reposts, it received thousands of comments from mothers and daughters, sharing their own heartbreaking stories and saying the essay made them feel seen.

The third came out last September in The Washington Post. It was about Ozempic and the message we send women about their bodies. I shared my complicated feelings about being judged for my body and how our worth, especially as women, is so often tied to appearance. I ended it with a statement of resistance to the idea that we need to be thin to be seen as beautiful or worthy. That piece became the number one most-read story in the Well+Being section for several days, which is rare. It got more than 1,800 comments before they closed the comment section after three days.

All of this is to say that there’s no one way for a piece to go viral.

Sometimes it’s traditional, other times a publication shares your piece on their socials and it touches a chord there. You’ll know when it hits because people find you. They flood your inbox. They leave hundreds, sometimes thousands, of comments on social media posts.

I know my writing wasn’t what made those pieces go viral. Here are the things I think helped them reach a wide audience:

I told my story in a way that was easily understood and felt.The topic tapped into something that a large audience could connect to like immigrant identity, mother-daughter relationships, and society’s obsession with women’s bodies.I was vulnerable and honest in a way that is tough and scary, but that makes the piece feel like a close friend is confiding in you.

So what happens when thousands or millions of people read your work? There will be people that love it, hate it, and everything in between. I’ve been told to “go back to my own country” numerous times, even though I’ve lived here most of my life. When I talked about not taking Ozempic and having a bigger body, the hate and criticism I got were expected but still really stung. But with every piece, the vast majority of comments and emails I got were from people reaching out to say that they felt seen, less alone, connected.

Writing those deeply personal pieces have been some of the proudest moments of my writing life. And I’d do it again in a second. When you show people something real, whether they agree with you or despise you, it stirs something.

Note from Jane: If you’re curious about the before, during and after of viral essays, join me in discussion with Rebecca Morrison and Andrea Tate in a free class on Thursday, July 31, What Happens When Your Piece Goes Viral?

Plot, Character, or Situation: Your Story’s Entry Point Determines Next Steps

Today’s post is by editor and book coach Heather Garbo.

How do you start a story? I don’t mean your first sentence, but rather how does the story begin to take shape in your mind? What is your story entry point?

I find writers approach stories from one of three entry points: plot, character, or situation.

A writer may be very clear about what they want to happen in the premise (plot entry point) or they may clearly understand who their protagonist is (character entry point) or they may want to explore a particular event, place or circumstances (situation entry point).

Your entry point is usually where you have the most clarity on your story. But so many writers falter with next steps, and that makes for a more painful revision process later. However, if you identify your story entry point, you can avoid some of the most common manuscript missteps.

Entry point #1: Plot

If you approach your story with a plot focus you might know the full sweep of the story or at least the general shape. You probably know the inciting incident that kicks off the story and where you want the story to end and perhaps some of the plot highlights. You might even have ideas about the main character, but if asked about your story at this point, you probably talk about the plot.

It might look something like this:

Samantha unexpectedly becomes a widow in her 60s and, with no close family, decides to open her house to rent rooms to university students. She quickly becomes entangled in their lives. When one of the young women doesn’t return home as expected and the police aren’t interested in helping, she and the others band together to try to find her.

You can see how, although the writer has some idea about who the main character is, they haven’t delved much into character development. Their focus is on what happens in the story. And there’s nothing wrong with that as long as they don’t overlook character development before they begin writing. If they do, we might see manuscript problems such as:

No clarity on the main character’s arc of transformation, which can lead to an unsatisfying endingMissing the main character’s emotional context and interiority on the page, which can lead to the reader not fully understanding what’s unfolding or not connecting with the main character, thereby not feeling engaged in the story.

Next steps: Stories that are heavy on plot can overlook the emotional journey of their protagonist. We get to the end of those stories and, while they may have been entertaining, we struggle to be emotionally invested in the characters. But if you delve into who your character is before you begin writing, you can get the internal plot—the protagonist’s transformational arc—on the page as well.

Here’s how you do that:

Before you begin writing, get to know your protagonist to understand them and the choices they make. Explore these questions:What is your protagonist’s current world view? Do they have a misguided belief? Where in their backstory did this originate? How does it change by the end of the story?What is their external want, the thing that is driving them forward in their narrative?What is their internal need, that thing they need to learn to achieve their transformative arc?What are the external and internal conflicts?What does the protagonist stand to lose (i.e., stakes)?Let these answers guide you to discovering the emotional context of your key plot points:How is the protagonist making sense of the unfolding events?What do these events mean to them?

As you draft your scenes, be sure you use these answers to get your protagonist’s emotional interiority onto the page so the reader understands what the unfolding plot events mean to them.

Entry point #2: Character

Sometimes it’s not a plot, but a character who figuratively taps us on the shoulder. If a main character is clearly taking shape in your mind but you’re not yet sure what to do with them, then you’re approaching your story from a character entry point.

This might look like:

“I want to write about a woman who is truly exploring her sexuality for the first time at 55.”“I want to write about a 30-year-old father who doesn’t meet his own dad until the first year of his daughter’s life.”“I want to write about a woman who’s always been timid but who is pushed to find her own strength in her 40s when a loved one is in jeopardy.”

In each of these entry points the writer is beginning to consider who the main character is and where they come from (i.e., backstory). Maybe they have even explored a misguided belief or know what their transformational arc should be. But they aren’t yet sure what happens in the story to push that character through their transformation.

In story, the plot points are how we test our main character. If you have a character entry point, you probably have not yet determined how you will put your main character through the paces. Again, this is not a problem but rather a clue about what to work on next—plot development!

If you jump into writing without giving plot much consideration, we tend to see manuscript problems like these:

Starting the story too early or too lateWeak narrative drive where things just happen in the plot but the events don’t feel very connected

Next steps: With a character entry point, you need to have total clarity on who that character is so you can craft the exact set of events that will push them out of their status quo life.

In her book The Making of a Story, Stanford University creative writing professor and author Alice LaPlante advises writers to consider: “What can I do to my character to unsettle or move or stress or stretch him or her in some way?” If you know your character well, then you can create the circumstances that will most effectively push that character out of their comfort zone and into the new adventure that will force them to grow.

Questions to explore include:

What is your main character most afraid of? How can you force them to stand in that fear? What is their worldview and misguided belief?What would cause a character like this to change?Entry point #3: Situation

This often begins with a writer deciding they would like to write about a particular event, place, or even circumstances such as a subculture. At first glance this might seem like a plot entry point, but it’s not. You’re more likely to begin by thinking about a large-scale event or set of circumstances rather than the smaller story that will unfold within it. It’s a macro approach rather than the micro approach. We often see this with historical fiction or if a writer wants to explore a social issue.

It might look something like:

“I want to want to write about the Soviet ballet during the Cold War.”“I want to write about Oxford University the first year women were admitted.”“I want to write about the Kingdom of Happy Land, the communal kingdom set up by formerly enslaved people in North Carolina.”

(Though I have no idea the starting points for these authors, these examples are all inspired by recent books: Maya and Natasha by Elyse Durham, The Eights by Joanna Miller, and Happy Land by Dolen Perkins-Valdez.)

And, yes, I will once again say: this is not a problem. But if you don’t take the right next steps, you’ll likely run into tricky revision problems such as:

Not making the story human scale. An entry point with such a big picture view can be trickier to scale down to create a story that is intriguing and engaging. In other words, how can you make this bigger situation meaningful for this particular character?Any of the above problems listed under Plot Entry Point or Character Entry Point

Next steps: With a situation entry point, you need to find the micro in the macro. What is the smaller, personal story here? I recommend beginning with your main character.

First explore the questions:

Which types of characters might we find at the heart of this particular event or situation?Who would most need to change in this situation or setting?Who is a character I am most drawn to? (Because you must first be interested if you hope to intrigue a reader!)

As with Plot Entry Point, next consider these questions to further your character development:

What is your protagonist’s current world view?Do they have a misguided belief? Where in their backstory did this originate? How does it change by the end of the story?What is their external want, the thing that is driving them forward in their narrative?What is their internal need, that thing they need to learn to achieve their transformative arc?What are the external and internal conflicts?What does the protagonist stand to lose (i.e., stakes)?

As with Character Entry Point, explore the series of events that might shape that character:

What is your main character most afraid of?How can you force them to stand in that fear?What is their worldview and misguided belief?What would cause a character like this to change?

Finally let all of these answers guide you to discovering the emotional context of your key plot points:

How is the protagonist making sense of the unfolding events?What do these events mean to them?

As a book coach, I believe all writers benefit from foundational story planning. But it doesn’t have to be extensive and it doesn’t mean outlining every plot point. Even if you identify as a pantser and eschew story plotting, you can gain clarity by using your story entry point to consider what you might be overlooking before you get too far into your writing. And, if you’ve already begun writing, it can still be helpful to pause and consider where you’ve started, how that shows up in your story, and what you might be missing. A little extra consideration on the front end can save you from a nightmare revision process later.

Do you use one of these story entry points or a different starting point? My observations are based on my experiences working with writers, and I would certainly love to hear about other approaches to story and how that’s worked for you!

Top 10 bestselling books of 2025 so far

In the lead: The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins, with more than 1.7 million copies sold, one of only two nonfiction books on the list.

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Book sales update: down 1 percent for the year

Adult fiction sales were up by 1 percent, nonfiction sales fell about 3 percent, and religious books are up by 16 percent.

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New nonprofit UK publisher: Extraordinary Books

The publisher will share profits with authors 50-50, but only after costs are recouped.

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