With social media fragmenting, I’m bringing back my old “You Tell Me” Wednesday discussions to try to get good old fashioned blog conversations going. If you’re reading in a feed reader or via email, please click through to the post to leave a public comment and join the discussion! I don’t have the most romantic view of ..read more

News emerged in the past few weeks that distressed a lot of literary fans. As I detailed in last week’s entry of This Week in Books: The late Alice Munro’s daughter Andrea Robin Skinner published an essay about how Munro stood by Skinner’s stepfather even after he admitted to sexually abusing Skinner. Nearly as distressing as that, all of this was more or less an open secret among those who surrounded Munro. And author Neil Gaiman has been accused by two women of sexual assault, allegations he denies. Meanwhile, a certain transgender-obsessed author of a certain bestselling c ..read more

This week! Books! We’re well into the publishing summer slowdown so I don’t have a tremendous number of links for you, but I still rustled up a few. First up, I’ll be at Comic-Con next week moderating the From Idea to Shelves panel with a stellar lineup of agents! Swing on by and say hello! Still more on the NY Times list of Best Books of the 21st Century! First LitHub has 71 books the list left off, which is a tremendous collection, and here’s the results of the NY Times reader poll, which has some positive correctives, and some crowd-pleasers I personally think shouldn’t come within a mile ..read more

Last week the NY Times surveyed over 500 writers to produce a list of the Best Books of the 21st Century so far. Who did they miss? Here are five additions I would have chosen: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson Spin by Robert Charles Wilson The City and the City by China Miéville Ghost by Jason Reynolds What about you? Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching! For my best advice, check out my online classes, my guide to writing a novel and my guide to publishing a book. And if you like this post: subscribe t ..read more

The news events in the past few weeks have really been throwing me for a loop, which is not a feeling I like at all! This rollercoaster has been rocking for nearly a decade now, and I’m very ready for a reprieve. Sometimes it just feels like grating ambient noise, other times it feels like a harbinger of a dark future that I’d very much prefer we find a way to stave off. In lieu of a full post early this week, I’m going to remind myself of some advice I’ve shared in the past: Writing in Times Like These Your writing matters How to keep writing when the s*** hits the fan How to return to writ ..read more

This week! Books! First up, some very distressing news regarding two famous authors. The late Alice Munro’s daughter Andrea Robin Skinner published an essay about how Munro stood by Skinner’s stepfather even after he admitted to sexually abusing Skinner. Nearly as distressing as that, all of this was more or less an open secret among those who surrounded Munro. And author Neil Gaiman has been accused by two women of sexual assault, allegations he denies. The New York Times polled 503 authors on the best books of the 21st Century, which comprises an interesting list. Here’s the top 10: My Bri ..read more

Over the years I’ve done hundreds of query and first page critiques, and I have to be honest that I’m losing some steam on them. Particularly with the query critiques, I feel like I’m running out of ways to say variations of “needs to be more specific!” and “losing sight of what is and isn’t on the page!”, which applies to about 80-90% of the queries. I could hunt for more interesting “problems,” but that brings its own challenges. I’m going to put these critiques on hold for the time being. I realize these have consistently been one of the more popular category of posts over the years, but a ..read more

With social media fragmenting, I’m bringing back my old “You Tell Me” Wednesday discussions to try to get good old fashioned blog conversations going. If you’re reading in a feed reader or via email, please click through to the post to leave a public comment and join the discussion! Particularly with a plainly unprecedented election season ramping up in the United States, things feel a bit stressful out there in the ole world. What’s your comfort read when you need a escape from the stresses of life, the universe, and everything? As you can problem guess from my framing, mine is The ..read more

Back when I first started dispensing feedback on manuscripts, I painstakingly abided by the sandwich rule: polite, constructive feedback, polite. I went to great lengths to put a positive spin on even the shakiest stretch in a book. Now? I’m direct. I don’t think of myself as harsh, and I don’t go out of my way to chop someone down or be unduly rude, but I try to be very transparent and clear with my feedback. If I’m frustrated in a stretch of a manuscript because I can’t figure out what’s happening, I show it. This post will cover why my thinking around feedback has evolved, and why I’d reco ..read more

Excess verbiage is a prime culprit behind a choppy reading experience and a bloated word count. Little redundancies can pile up over the course of a novel and add tens of thousands of extra words. When I’m line editing a manuscript, there are several common phrases that instantly get cut because they are almost always non-additive. Find and delete these phrases and your future readers will thank you. “the sound of” Example: He heard the sound of footsteps approaching. By definition, if a character hears something it’s because there’s a sound. You don’t need to note the existence of a sound. Y ..read more