by Monica M. Clark |
By the end of this post you will be using an excel spreadsheet.
Don’t make that face—I know you’re a writer and not a data analyst. Or if you are a data analyst—I understand that you’re on this blog to get away from you day job. I get it. But guess what? At the suggestion of Randy Ingermason—the creator of the Snowflake Method— I listed all of the scenes in my novel in a nice little Google spreadsheet. It changed my novel-writing life, and doing the same will change yours too.
by J. D. Edwin |
Are you trying to write faster? Writing a scene outline might be exactly what you need. But what is a scene outline, and how you can create one that help direct your story while giving you creative freedom?
A scene outline can give your story plan focus and prevent burnout or confusion when actually writing your story.
In this article, you’ll learn how to create a scene list that gives your big story idea focus, which will help you not only write faster, but give you a higher chance of actually finishing your book—and having fun while you write it!
by Joslyn Chase and Sarah Gribble |
Whether you’re self publishing or you have a traditional publisher, it’s up to you to sell your books. Email marketing is the number one way to sell books. But in order to use email marketing effectively, you first have to gather a list of email addresses, a group of readers who want to hear from you.
Struggling to build your list? Try this.
by J. D. Edwin |
Finishing a first draft is a huge deal. If you just accomplished this, be proud of yourself! At the same time, you might be wondering how to revise a novel after that first draft is done. There’s a lot of advice out there. Which do you listen to?
The revision process doesn’t have to be complicated. However, you might feel—especially if this is your first completed draft ever—intimidated to edit your book. There’s a lot of words and scenes to review. Where do you begin?
In this article, I’d like to share how I took a daunting editing process and created a simplified, concise, and clear strategy to revising your first draft. I do this with what I call a Revision List—a table with five columns that can help you simplify big ideas.
If you’re like me, you won’t ever want to edit a first draft without it!
by Joe Bunting |
For the writer, there’s nothing harder than writing the first chapter and final chapter of a book. It is here that all of your perfectionism rears its ugly head calling for a full halt to your progress.
I’ve written and rewritten my first chapter dozens of times, and I’m not alone. Most writers struggle figuring out how to start their novel, and it makes sense. Your first chapter can make or break your book: with readers, agents, and publishers.
So then how do you do it? How do you write a good first chapter? In this post, I’m going to walk you through the ten things you need to accomplish in your first chapter, and give you a checklist that you can use in your novel.
