You know that feeling you get when you start reading a book and you just connect to it so well? It's that same connection and empathy that compels us to revisit our favorites --- the book that's dogeared and has paragraphs that you know by heart. As I reader, I didn't think about the reason why I loved a book so much. I just knew that is was a favorite. Now that I'm a writer, I always try to find the strings attached behind the words. The craft behind the connection. And one thing that … [Read more...]
2010 Springmingle: Revision Techniques
March 5, 2010 Read Comments
This past weekend, I went to the 2010 Springmingle conference sponsored by the Southern Breeze SCBWI chapter. On Wednesday, I shared some tips about developing your character. Today, I'm going to share some revision techniques. For me, I love the revision process more than I do writing the draft. Revision allows me to make my characters deeper and uncover things about my novel that I couldn't see in the draft. These tips are that I gathered from Cheryl Klein, senior editor of Arthur A. … [Read more...]
2010 Springmingle: Character Dimensions
March 3, 2010 Read Comments
This past weekend, I went to the 2010 Springmingle conference sponsored by the Southern Breeze SCBWI chapter. Cheryl Klein, senior editor of Arthur A. Levine Books (a Scholastic imprint), led an interesting workshop called "Dimensions of Character." I'm a plotter first, which means my character arcs come second after the plot idea. I don't concentrate on character sketches or bios --- like I shared in a previous post, Character Development. However, Cheryl Klein did have some great tips … [Read more...]
Query Letter Gold
January 4, 2010 Leave a Comment
My good writer friend, Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, has her debut book out in stores NOW. Eighth Grade Superzero is a middle-grade novel that I'm going to get my hands on as soon as I can get to a bookstore this week. Her editor, Cheryl Klein has an excellent post, How to Write a Great Query Letter: An Example That Worked. You should definitely go over and check it out. She annotates Gbemi's letter, which is a great opportunity to learn what editors are looking for in a query. "If … [Read more...]
