Terry Shames's Blog: 7 Criminal Minds, page 181

The Man Behind the Curtain

Overheard at a recent convention: “I don’t read the way I used to before I was a writer.” Is this something you can relate to? What does it mean for you? Pros and cons?
by Paul D. Marks
This is definitely something I can relate to. And no, I don’t read the same. 
I’ve been writing one thing or another for most of my adult life. First screenplays, then some non-fiction, then stories and novels. And for all these types of writing working “behind the scenes,” so to speak, has skewed the way I...

The Shell Game

READING: Overheard at a recent convention: “I don’t read the way I used to before I was a writer.” Is this something you can relate to? What does it mean for you? Pros and cons?
By Catriona
I'm sitting in Jess Lourey's house in Minneapolis right now, with Terri Bischoff here too, and we're carving out an answer together.
Yes. That's the short version. 
But there's a longer version. There's an inevitable loss of innocence once you've learned how a book is put together: the bones and musculatu...

A lesson learned...by Cathy Ace

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The Reading Road - by RM Greenaway

READING: Overheard at a recent convention: “I don’t read the way I used to before I was a writer.” Is this something you can relate to? What does it mean for you? Pros and cons?


I don't remember a time I wasn't a writer, and what I read has influenced my writing all the way along, but the relationship between reading and writing has definitely changed over the years.
As a very young writer, I didn't know that rich-and-famous was a thing.  The picture books I read -- Madeline being my role...

Show me the bones

Q: Overheard at a recent convention: “I don’t read the way I used to before I was a writer.” Is this something you can relate to? What does it mean for you? Pros and cons? - from Susan



A: Good question and my answer is sometimes, depends. If I’m reading narrowly within my genre – a traditional mystery – yes, I read differently most of the time. I can’t help it. I am alert to the red herrings and buried clues, to the too casual way something is dropped into the story and then ignored...

Social Media (Acosta) and Publishing Business Intelligence (Gardner)

We get a bonus post this week, as Hector Acosta is still filling in for me. Thing is, he answered last week's question, and wonderfully so. I'll begin with his post, then just below you'll find my post on elevator pitches for authors. You want to stick around for this one, as my pitch game was on fire last week at ThrillerFest, and I returned with a lot of information for authors.

"Heeeere's Hector!"Social Butterfly, by Hector Acosta, author of Hardway.

I don’t have a blog or newsletter, and it...

Going Up?

From Jim

Is it a part of an author’s responsibility to develop a good “elevator pitch”? If so, why; if not, why not? Any advice for those trying to develop a good/better one?

If you believe writers, the two hardest things they do are writing a synopsis and crafting an elevator pitch.

The inherent problem with elevator pitches is that there’s little time to describe your book. Therefore, you probably won’t be able to give a complete rundown of the plot and characters. What you must do is grab the...

In a nutshell

Is it a part of an author’s responsibility to develop a good “elevator pitch”? If so, why; if not, why not? Any advice for those trying to develop a good/better one?
by Dietrich Kalteis
It didn’t occur to me when I typed ‘the end’ to my first novel that somebody was bound to ask what the book was about, and that I needed to do more than blink and ramble.
The first time I went to Bouchercon was months before the release of that first novel, and I met an author I admired and I was asked what my bo...

Difficult, but a must do

By R.J. Harlick

Is it a part of an author’s responsibility to develop a good “elevator pitch”? If so, why; if not, why not? Any advice for those trying to develop a good/better one?
Yup, definitely a must. But this is only something I have learned in hindsight. When I was starting out on my writing adventure, I never gave developing a short snappy pitch a second thought. I was too busy perfecting my book. When people asked me what it was all about, I would go into lengthy descriptions, which on...

Should You or Shouldn't You?

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