Falguni Kothari is a New York-based South Asian writer who was already published in India when she began seriously querying literary agents in the United States, eventually signing with Andrea Somberg of the Harvey Klinger Agency.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a motivational theory developed by psychologist Abraham Maslow. The hierarchy, comprising a five-tier pyramid, explains the connection between basic human needs and motivation. Bryan E. Robinson has adapted this scale to consider what needs writers must satisfy to move their dreams of writing success up the...
If you are avoiding writing, if you tell yourself you don’t have enough time, try the following: Write a short description of what is waiting for you at your desk. What will happen when you sit down to write? Remember: Writing is never about what happens, but what it feels like...
“Writing is so difficult that I feel that writers, having had their hell on earth, will escape all punishment hereafter.”—Jessamyn West The dead aren’t supposed to walk among us, but they do. I’ve seen them—writers frazzled from publishing’s frenetic pace, spirits dead from unfulfilled and stressful career demands—empty shells, comatose like...
Every author wants his or her book to be a success. Dreams of best-seller lists, grand book tours with sold out speaking engagements, and that coveted interview with Oprah, luxuriate in the backs (and often fronts) of many the writerly mind. But the process of connecting the dots between first draft...
A memoir can be a massive undertaking. As writers, we sometimes take pride in this complexity. It makes us seem, well, more professional. It can also alienate us from real people. And real people have stories to tell. Very real stories. So it becomes important that we set aside our biases...
I love picture book biographies. I love reading them and being inspired and thinking, “Wow, that’s an amazing story. How come I didn’t know that?” And I love writing them. Why? Because picture book biographies are all about inspiring kids to their own greatness. This is important to me. In addition...
I write a detective fiction series set in World War II Britain. My lead character, Detective Chief Inspector Frank Merlin, is a tough and experienced Scotland Yard police officer engaged in the grueling fight against crime in wartime London as his country battles heroically for its survival against Nazi Germany. During...
Funny stories that comedians perform in clubs are called anecdotal stand-up. These stories can be based on real-life experiences or they can be made up. In either case, there are three keys to transforming a funny story that your friends enjoy into anecdotal stand-up that can entertain an audience. Build frequent...
I recently moved into a new house and office, and was faced with carting along decades of writing research in the process. Books, albums, boxes of photos, cassettes—that was the easy part. Assembling the stacks of files, the collapsed cartons of photocopies, insect-infested pamphlets and newspaper clippings, the 10,000 pages of...
In the writing community, we often talk about “refilling the well,” an idea that we understand conceptually, but is often lost in translation when we try to apply it to our lives. What does refilling the well actually look like and how do we make time for it in our already...
As many of you know, book publishing industry professionals and readers alike have openly expressed their dislike of prologues. Act first, explain later. Great advice from James Scott Bell. Be careful with backstory and prologues. #writetip — Nat Russo (@NatRusso) September 30, 2017 Yes! Prologues don't work all the time, do...
I’ve considered myself a professional writer for a little over three years now, and I’ve learned a great deal about the publishing industry in that time. Much of how I think and what I do as an independently published author parallels the experiences of my traditionally published friends, but there are...
When I heard an author say that it took years to complete their latest book, I assumed they were lazy. I mean, I wrote thirty-one YA novels in ten years. During that time I also got a puppy, moved across the country, had two kids, went for (and failed) my California...
A confession: I bristled at being called a “screenwriter” while jacket copy for Magicians Impossible, my debut novel, was being finalized. Everyone else wanted that facet of my biography in; I wanted it out. I didn’t want to be “screenwriter with debut novel,” which to most reading pegs said debut novel...
So you’re in the query trenches. You’ve been gritting your teeth through this process for months, weeks, years, millennia, and suddenly, an e-mail comes in with the golden ticket: OFFER OF REPRESENTATION. The call goes beautifully, you are ready to sign. Then your inbox dings again. And so it begins. ...
Josh Barkan is the author of Mexico (January 24, 2017; Hogarth/Crown Books), a collection of short stories that capture the beauty, strangeness, and brutality of life in modern Mexico. He’s also published two other books: a novel, Blind Speed, and a collection of stories, Before Hiroshima. His writing has appeared in...
Congratulations on publishing your first book! Maybe it’s actually the second or third book you’ve written, or your tenth, but at long last a publisher has recognized the genius even you had begun to question. Go on and open that bottle of wine that has aged so gracefully, if a little...
Note: The following is a guest post from Stephanie Stokes Oliver, an author, editor, and scout for Simon & Schuster’s Atria Books. For more information on Stephanie’s scouting guidelines, see below. You can find her online at stephaniestokesoliver.com. Cheers! You’ve finished your manuscript, and are preparing to begin your search for...
2. Take advantage of small moments. Let’s be realistic. If you work a full-time job and have any kind of life, sometimes small moments are all you’re going to get out of a day. If you’re in the doctor’s office (okay, that may be a large moment), or waiting for your...
I’m willing to offer this generalization: whatever level we’ve attained in our development as readers, we always lag behind that standard as writers. I’ve never met a good writer who wasn’t also a great reader. The more broadly and deeply we read, the more we recognize excellent writing in its endless guises and...
(This is Part 1 of a three-part series to kickstart your awesome 2017. Part 2 is a roundup of query letter submission tips, and Part 3 is a list of literary agent pet peeves.) The New Year is here, and that means new goals, new resolutions, and new writing projects to...
Do you want readers to love your protagonist? Or to be inspired by her? A powerful tool for achieving the strong visceral responses you want is outside your conscious mind, but it’s not out of reach. Everything you write, especially a first draft, is a collaboration with another writer: your subconscious....