Category Archives: About writing

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ROW80 Check-In 2 : Meg Cabot’s writing tips

Hello gentle reader,

It is already time for a second ROW80 check-in. My goals for this fourth round are as follows:

Write or edit every day

Editing – Finish my current round of editing for The Last Queen, get my manuscript critiqued and beat-read, then edit some more.

DONE: I finished another round of editing and sent The Last Queen to CPs and beta readers. I’m waiting to hear back from them.

Writing – Write a short story, and continue writing the first draft of The Cursed King

DONE : I worked on The Cursed King and added about 2000 words to my first draft.

So this was another good writing week for me: I did write or edit every day. Tuesday and Friday were once again tough (because I get home from work late on those days), but I still stuck to the routine. A big thank you to Lauren Garafalo, Julie Jordan Scott and Juliana Haygert for their support during our Twitter sprints!

This week I also managed to read two books again and I kept my blog alive with a post on word counts. Check it out if you want to discuss the relevance of limited word counts for writers. I also worked on my query letter and my synopsis. A big thank you to Craig Schmidt for his help.

Now, on to an inspiring story to keep us going this coming week. Today I’m quoting bestselling YA author Meg Cabot. I found the following on her website.

“It took me three years of sending out query letters every day to get an agent, and a year for her to find me a publisher. When my first book got published I was 30. I sent out several hundred of these letters before a single person ever asked to see the book I was trying to sell.

Some people say if you get anyone to look at your book at all, you are lucky. I believe that luck is 95% preparation and 5% opportunity. So basically…you have to make your own luck.

My advice to young writers is:

Write the kinds of stories you like to read. If you don’t love what you’re writing, no one else will, either.

Don’t tell people you want to be a writer. Everyone will try to talk you out of choosing a job with so little security, so it is better just to keep it to yourself, and prove them all wrong later.

You are not a hundred dollar bill. Not everyone is going to like you … or your story. Do not take rejection personally.

If you are blocked on a story, there is probably something wrong with it. Take a few days off and put the story on a back burner for a while. Eventually, it will come to you.

Read-and write-all the time. Never stop sending out your stuff. Don’t wait for a response after sending a story out…start a new story right away, and then send that one out! If you are constantly writing and sending stuff out (don’t forget to live your life, too, while you are doing this) eventually someone will bite!

It is nearly impossible to get published these days without an agent. The guide I used to get mine was called the Jeff Herman Guide to Agents, Editors, and Publishers. It was well worth the money I spent on it, since it lists every agent in the business and what he or she is looking for. It also tells you how to write a query letter, what to expect from your publisher, and all sorts of good stuff…a must buy for any aspiring author!

And above all, become a good listener. In order to write believable dialogue, you need to listen to the conversations of the people around you—then try to imitate them! So my advice is always to try to keeping quiet, listen only, and let other people to do the talking for a change. You’ll be surprised how much this will improve your writing skills (and how many people will think you’re a really sage person, when all you’re basically doing is spying on them).

Good luck, and keep writing! If I can do it, so can you!”

 How are you other ROWers doing? Here is the Linky to support each other!

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Word count : is your Fantasy novel too long ?

Hello gentle reader,

It’s Thursday! Let’s talk about writing, shall we?

As you may know, I am currently revising my WIP The Last Queen, and I have been struggling with a high word count. I wrote the first draft of this YA Epic Fantasy novel without really thinking of its length (I just wrote the story I wanted), and now I have to cut down some words if I don’t want to make agents cringe when they read my query letter.

This week I have also helped the lovely Mara Valderran with her own query letter. She is currently querying her Epic Fantasy novel HEIRS OF WAR with a word count at 137k. And here is what she says about her word count: “My word count is really high for a new author. You know this, I know this, and I’ve done my damndest to cut it (I shaved 12k off in the past two weeks! Yay!). Is it a roadblock for me? Sure. But it’s one I am painfully aware of.”

So it seems that I’m far from being the only Epic Fantasy writer struggling with a high word count.

As writers, our first reaction is often to say: but there are lots of Fantasy novels out there with huge word counts and they still sell! And some are even first novels! (see Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian, at about 240k words)

Yes, people do buy books with high word counts. I’m one of those readers who are not afraid to read a super long book. However, these books are either AMAZING like The Historian, or they are, well, too long. G.R.R. Martin can publish A Storm of Swords at 424k words because he is an established and bestselling author, but I still think this novel was way too long and should have been edited down. The same goes for The Passage by Justin Cronin: 300k words and half the book could have been cut out without hurting the story.

So if you write Fantasy and you’re trying to get agented or published, nothing stops you from querying a 150k + words manuscript.

YA Epic Fantasy author Sarah J. Maas did just that with her 240k-word novel Throne of Glass back in 2008 (read the story here). And guess what? She got rejected. She did eventually get an agent with her manuscript at 145k words. And guess what? She got rejected by editors. Throne of Glass was finally published in August 2012, with a final word count of… a little over 100K words.

The moral of this story? Listen to the advice of professionals. Whatever the genre of your novel, research the word count expected by agents and editors. And follow their guidelines, even if it costs you. Editing your Masterpiece is part of the writing process. So is getting rid of unnessary plot points and extra words. Do it. It might save you time, and the pain of being rejected.

Freelance editor Cassandra Marshall gives these guidelines for Fantasy books word counts:

YA fantasy:  70-90k words

Adult Fantasy – 80,000-120,000 words (most averaging 100k-115k but editors would prefer to see them below 100k)

YA epic/high/traditional/historical fantasy = 90k to 120k

Finally, if you’re curious about the word count of popular Epic Fantasy novels, you can check them out here.

So what do you think? Are you struggling with a high word count? Do you think agents and editors should be more flexible debut authors and their word counts? As a reader, do you enjoy reading long books? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section!

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ROW80 Check-In 1: Neil Gaiman’s 8 Rules of Writing

Hello gentle reader,

It is time for my first ROW80 check-in! My goals for this fourth round are as follows:

Write or edit every day

Editing – Finish my current round of editing for The Last Queen, get my manuscript critiqued and beat-read, then edit some more.

Writing – Write a short story, and continue writing the first draft of The Cursed King

I’m happy to report that I’ve had a great writing week, since I did manage to write or edit every day! Some days (Tuesday and Friday) were tough because I got home from work very late, but I still stuck to the routine. I also managed to read two books for my upcoming Halloween post and I kept my blog alive with an interview with YA author Meagan Spooner. Check it out if you want to know how she got published.

If you’re new to this blog, know that I always add an inspiring story to my ROW80 check-ins. This week, I’m sharing Neil Gaiman’s 8 Rules of Writing that I found on the Guardian website. Neil Gaiman is one of my favourite authors and his writing advice is worth a read.

Image by Kimberly Butler

  1. Write
  2. Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.
  3. Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.
  4. Put it aside. Read it pretending you’ve never read it before. Show it to friends whose opinion you respect and who like the kind of thing that this is.
  5. Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.
  6. Fix it. Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.
  7. Laugh at your own jokes.
  8. The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it’s definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it ­honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.

How are you other ROWers doing? Here is the Linky to support each other!

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A Writer in the Spotlight – Meagan Spooner

This week again I was lucky enough to have a YA author give me an exclusive interview! The idea behind the “Writer in the Spotlight” feature is that published (and bestselling) authors are the best source of advice for us, would-be-published writers. Today’s interview is with debut author Meagan Spooner. Her Dystopian novel, Skylark, is out now. Her science fiction novel, These Broken Stars (co-authored with Amie Kaufman), will be out in 2013.

Author : Meagan Spooner

Genre : Young Adult, Dystopian & Fantasy

Location: Northern Virginia

Contact: Website, Goodreads, Twitter

Books : Skylark (2012), These Broken Stars (2013)

Bio: Meagan Spooner grew up reading and writing every spare moment of the day, while dreaming about life as an archaeologist, a marine biologist, an astronaut. She graduated from Hamilton College in New York with a degree in playwriting, and has spent several years since then living in Australia. She’s traveled with her family all over the world to places like Egypt, South Africa, the Arctic, Greece, Antarctica, and the Galapagos, and there’s a bit of every trip in every story she writes.She currently lives and writes in Northern Virginia, but the siren call of travel is hard to resist, and there’s no telling how long she’ll stay there. In her spare time she plays guitar, plays video games, plays with her cat, and reads.

My interview (01/10/2012):

On writing:

Did you always know you wanted to be a writer?

Yes. As long as I can remember, anyway. I was very young when I first decided I wanted to be an author–about four years old or so. I had one of those little-kid epiphanies where I suddenly realized that real people wrote the books I liked to read, and that blew my mind. You know how it is when you’re small, you never really think about where things come from. Well, when I realized that books were made by actual people, I decided that’s what I wanted to do some day. I’ve always had other aspirations along the way as well, but writing has been the only one I constantly aspired to.

When and where do you write?

Whenever I can/need to, and wherever I happen to be. I know that’s a boring answer, because people love to hear about the routine, but the truth is that once you start juggling deadlines for multiple books and series at every stage of the process, you can’t really afford to be precious about your routine. Ideally I like to write at my desk when I’m alone in my apartment, and that tends to be where I get the bulk of my work done. But I write on my netbook when I’m traveling, and I write by hand occasionally when I’ve got something flowing and no computer nearby. (This happens most often when I’m driving somewhere, and I end up having to pull over to the side of the road and write on napkins and receipts. Seriously.)

What do you say to people who want to be writers? How difficult is it to get published?

That’s kind of a tough question to answer because there are so many factors–it’s not just a level of difficulty on a scale from 1 to 10 that’s the same for everyone. Do you read a lot? Have you been writing for a long time? Do you pay attention to what other authors do and try to utilize those tools in your own writing? Are you talented? Do you work hard? Are you driven and dedicated? If the answer to most of those things is “yes,” then you’ve got a pretty good chance of being published. Yes, there’s luck involved–hitting the right agent/publisher with the right story at the right time–but most of it is hard work and being willing to improve yourself. You have to walk this incredibly fine line between being arrogant enough to keep thinking you can do it even when you get shot down over and over again, while also being humble enough to accept and incorporate criticism, and grow your craft.

 

On “Skylark”:

To write this book, where did you get your inspiration from? Were you aware of the coming dystopian trend in YA literature when you wrote it?

I wasn’t aware, no. I’d read THE HUNGER GAMES but wasn’t really paying attention to the YA market when I got the idea (which you can read more about here), because I wasn’t particularly driven to get published at that time. It was only after I had the idea for SKYLARK that I knew it was The Book, and I started keeping an eye on what was going on out there. The truth is, even then I had no particular view on the dystopian craze, because to me, SKYLARK isn’t really dystopian literature. There are elements that it shares with many dystopian stories, so it often gets called dystopian (even by me when I’m describing it simply) and shelved that way. But structurally it’s the Hero’s Journey, through and through–it’s fantasy, not science fiction.

Why did you choose to write for Young Adults?

Joss Whedon, one of my writing idols, often gets asked why he writes strong female characters. His response is “Because you’re still asking me that question.” Why write for young adults? Why NOT write for young adults? Why would anybody not want to write for young adults? For one thing, you won’t find a more riveted and dedicated audience anywhere. No one reads like kids and teenagers read, with such investment and heart.

But to me, being a teenager is all about having real choices for the first time in your life, and having to make those choices without necessarily knowing where they’ll lead you. And choice is what all good stories are really about, deep down. The choices protagonists make, and where those choices take them.

What are you working on now?

Everything. Okay, that’s not a helpful response, but that’s pretty much what it feels like. I’m revising book two of the SKYLARK trilogy, planning book three, doing copy edits on THESE BROKEN STARS, and writing the first draft of the second book in that series. And yes, all at the same time. If I had extra time, or if suddenly all my contracted work just vanished, I’d be working on a Beauty and the Beast retelling that I began way back when I first sent out query letters for SKYLARK. It was going to be my next project, in case SKYLARK (then called THE IRON WOOD) didn’t land me an agent. Two years later and I haven’t gotten to finish it yet! Someday. 😉

 

Reading advice:

Which authors inspire you now? Which YA books would recommend?

For dystopian fiction, I’d recommend THE GIVER by Lois Lowry. For science fiction, I’d recommend ENDER’S GAME by Orson Scott Card. For fantasy, I’d point you toward THE LAST UNICORN by Peter S. Beagle, or if you want a more recent book, GRACELING (and its companion novels) by Kristin Cashore.

As far as authors go, Tamora Pierce, Robin McKinley, Patricia C. Wrede, and Diana Wynne Jones have always been huge inspirations for me. I go back to them constantly whenever I lose sight of what I’m doing, or why I’m working so hard to do it.

Thanks, Meagan, for an awesome interview!

SKYLARK is available from Amazon here.

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ROW80 Round 4 – Goals!

October 1st, 2012 (that’s tomorrow!) is the official start date for Round 4 of A Round of Words in 80 Days (aka ROW80). I have decided to join this writing challenge for the third time. Created by Kait Nolan, ROW80 is “the writing challenge that knows you have a life”, or “the challenge that champions the marriage of writing and real life.” Unlike NaNoWriMo which runs for only a month, each ROW80 round runs for 80 days and the participating writers have to set themselves writing goals for that time. Each Wednesday and Sunday, we check in and let the others know how we are doing. The idea is to form writing habits that writers will hopefully continue once the challenge is over.

As you may know if you follow this blog, my daily life is pretty crazy. I have a day job that keeps me extremely busy, I travel a lot and I read tons of books. Fitting some writing time in my schedule is a challenge, but I’m still very intent on getting published one day.

So here are my goals for this round (and yes, I know they haven’t changed much since the last round, but if at first you don’t succeed…):

Write or edit every day

Editing – Finish my current round of editing for The Last Queen, get my manuscript critiqued and beat-read, then edit some more.

Writing – Write a short story, and continue writing the first draft of The Cursed King

Round Four starts on Monday, October 1st and will end on Thursday, December 20th.

If you would like to join in this writing challenge and become a part of the ROW80 community, here are the rules:

  1. Post a goals post in which you lay out your goals for this round.
  2. Post a check-in post every Wednesday and Sunday, in which you share your progress with the other ROW80 participants.
  3. Comment on other participants’ check-in posts.

Here is the Linky for the other participants’ posts. What are your ROW80 goals for this round?

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On characters : whose story is this anyway ?

Hello gentle reader,

Today is Sunday, so here is my weekly post about the writing process. Hope you all had a lovely week. If you’re here to enter my Stuck In A Good Book Giveaway, click here.

As you may know, I’m currently revising my WIP The Last Queen, and this week I have been thinking a lot about characters and points of view. In most stories, the viewpoint character and the main character are the same person. But it doesn’t have to be. In my WIP, my main character is not the hero of the story. And it’s perfectly fine to write your story this way, as long as you know what you’re doing.

In The Writer’s Digest Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy, Hugo Award winner Orson Scott Card explains:

“When you’re deciding whom the story is about, remember that the “hero”, the main character, and viewpoint character don’t have to be the same person. Most of us use the term hero as an informal synonym for “main character”. But in our day (…) it’s useful to keep a distinction in mind.

The hero is the character that the audience hopes will achieve his goals and desires – the character we are rooting for. There’s a moral judgment involved here. (…) We want him to win.

But the hero isn’t always the main character. Sometimes the most important character in a story, the one who makes everything happen, the one whose choices and struggles the story is about, [is another character].”

One of the best examples of this duality in a story is the movie Sucker Punch by Zack Snyder (2011). In this story, the main character is a girl named Sweet Pea.

She is the narrator of the story and the leader of the group of characters. She makes the decisions, and the story revolves around her choices and future.

But she is not the heroine of the movie. The heroine is another girl, named Baby Doll. She is the one the audience connects with and cares about. She is the one we follow to find out if her hopes and desires will be fulfilled. And it so happens that her desires and hopes involve giving Sweet Pea a bright future.

So how do you go about choosing your main character?

1)      You decide what you want to write about. What you want to say through your story.

2)      You decide whose story you want to tell. You choose your main character,  a voice to speak throughout the story, a character who connects with the reader.

3)      You decide if this main character is the hero of your story. Most of the times, the answer will be yes. But sometimes, it might worth considering the answer no.

 Then you write.

“And finally this question, the mystery of whose story it will be. Of who draws the curtain. Who is it that chooses our steps in the dance? Who drives us mad? Lashes us with whips and crowns us with victory when we survive the impossible? Who is it, that does all of these things?

Who honors those we love for the very life we live? Who sends monsters to kill us, and at the same time sings that we will never die? Who teaches us what’s real and how to laugh at lies? Who decides why we live and what we’ll die to defend? Who chains us? And Who holds the key that can set us free…

It’s You.

You have all the weapons you need.

Now Fight!”

Sweet Pea in Sucker Punch

So how do you go about choosing your main character? Is your main character always the hero in your stories? I’d love the read your input below!

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ROW80 Check-In 10: Rae Carson’s success story

Hello gentle reader and fellow writers,

This week I have been hearing a lot about a British teenage writer who got a 6-figure book deal in less than 2 years. As dreamlike as these publishing stories are, I wanted to highlight another author’s story today.

Rae Carson is a YA High Fantasy author whose first book, The Girl of Fire and Thorns, came out in 2011. It was a nominee for the Andre Norton Award and the William C. Morris YA Debut Award. It was also an ALA (American Library Association) Top 10 Best Fiction for Young Adults honoree in 2012. The second book in The Fire and Thorns Trilogy, entitled The Crown of Embers, is coming out on September 18th 2012. Her third book, The Bitter Kingdom, will be published in 2013. In June 2012, she sold a new romantic fantasy trilogy set during the American gold rush to HarperCollins’s Greenwillow Books.

 

Rae’s journey into publishing is interesting because it was slow. She became serious about writing back in 2004, and it took her 7 years to get a book published. Along the way she sold a couple of short stories, wrote a first book which is still in her drawer, then in 2005 she wrote the first draft of The Girl of Fire and Thorns. She got an agent, and never sold the novel to a publisher. So she revised it and decided to go with another agent, who managed to sell the book within 24 hours. It took then another couple of years to have the book sitting on bookshelves in bookstores.

Here is what Rae says on her website:

“I graduated college with a degree in Social Science–which qualified me to flip burgers–and a mound of education debt. I still didn’t know what I wanted to do when I grew up.

Well, that’s not true. I did know. I wanted to be a novelist. But that just wasn’t practical, and I had to come up with something else. I had to have a Plan B. So I tried bank tellering, secretarial work, customer service, inside sales, substitute teaching, data entry, logistics, and even machine shop-ing. I didn’t enjoy any of it.

In 2004, after quitting a very high paying job in a very toxic atmosphere, I decided to get serious about writing. It was the only thing I kept coming back to, the one thing that had held my interest over time and distance and lots of life change. So I joined the Online Writing Workshop for Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror where I met my future best friends, my future husband, and my calling.

I spent the next few years happily writing awful stuff. During this time, I got to know C.C. Finlay online, and after going on three real-life dates, I moved from California to Ohio to marry him. The writing became a lot less awful, and eventually I sold my first novel to Greenwillow/HarperCollins.

Hindsight is easy, I know, and writing about the awkwardness of adolescence is way easier than living it. But I can say unequivocally that although growing up is hard, it’s totally worth it. It’s possible to become your better self. And dreams, no matter how impractical, are made to be pursued.”

So do you find this story inspirational? Do you believe the traditional route to publishing is too slow? Or does it guarantee great books from great authors for readers? I’d love to read your thoughts in the comment section!

You can find Rae Carson on Twitter and Facebook.

To write this post, I have used:

http://www.locusmag.com/Perspectives/2012/07/rae-carson-amulet-of-power/

http://shelf-life.ew.com/2012/09/13/fire-and-thorns-author-rae-carson/

My ROW80 update for this week:

this week I have tried writing a short story AND revising my WIP The Last Queen. The reuslt is that I have a unfinished short story and I’m late in my revisions. So for the last week of this round, I need to focus on revisions.

How are you other ROWers doing? Here is the Linky to support each other!

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What is “strong writing” ?

One of the most common reasons for agents and publishers to reject a manuscript is « weak writing ». Rather than listing here what makes your writing weak, I’d like to offer a few pointers to help you make your writing strong – or stronger. I will use The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins as an example, since I think most of you have either read the book or seen the movie based on it.

What you need to work on to make your writing “strong”:

1-      The plot

In real life, things rarely go according to plan. Then why should they in books? Your Main Character needs to start out with a plan (for the day, for the year or in life). Then everything needs to go awry.

 In The Hunger Games, Katniss is constantly faced with the unexpected. She goes to the Reaping thinking she or Gale will be picked. It’s Prim who is chosen. She enters the arena thinking she’ll have to count only on herself to survive. Then she finds an ally in Peeta.

2-      The characters

The world cannot revolve around your Main Character. In some stories, the characters seem to exist for the sole purpose of helping the MC or making her miserable. When you’re told you need to “flesh out” your characters, it means you have to make them unique, but it also means you have to give them their own story, their own plan, their own desires, their own AGENDA that will have nothing to do with the MC.

In The Hunger Games, Effie has her own agenda (get promoted to a better district, have a good career) and it so happens that the best course of events for her is if Katniss wins the Games. So she helps Katniss along the way. But if you look at the story from her point of view, Katniss is a means to an end (at least at the beginning).

3-      The pace

Strong writing means no dull moments. It doesn’t mean you have to write an action-packed story in the strictest sense of the word, but it does mean things need to happen in every chapter, and there needs to be a “hanger” at the end of each chapter that will keep your reader reading.

In The Hunger Games, each chapter ends with a cliffhanger. If you write romance,  your “hanger” doesn’t have to be your MC waking up to “a wall of fire descending on” her, but it has to be something that makes the reader turn the page.

4-      High stakes

Having high stakes in your story means that your MC needs to be faced with hard decisions. Your reader needs to wonder what the outcome of the situation will be. Your reader needs to care about your MC making the right decision.

In The Hunger Games, the stakes cannot be higher since every decision Katniss is faced with means life or death for her or someone else. But a love triangle can constitute high stakes too. What works well in The Hunger Games is that Katniss choosing between Gale and Peeta is a very complicated decision, given the circumstances and who they are.

5-      Style

To avoid a so-called “awkward writing”, you may choose to write short, to-the-point sentences.

In The Hunger Games, Collins’ style is simple and it works. Each sentence is carefully worded, with judiciously chosen images. Example: “Behind Peeta, Cato slashes his way through the bush.” That’s 9 words. Yet we get a clear sense of the scene.

6-      World building / Descriptions

When your writing is strong, your reader doesn’t notice when you include world building or descriptions in your story.

By the end of The Hunger Games, the reader has a clear idea of what Katniss, District 12, the Capitol or the Games Arena look like, yet it’s hard to remember exactly when Collins described them. She intertwined the descriptions with her story.

7-      Depth

Strong writing is a tool to make your reader think. You read The Hunger Games for the story, the characters, the suspense. But the reason why so many readers enjoyed it so much is that it tackles important themes. It questions reality TV, freedom and the things we take for granted in our Western societies.

8-      Grammar, spelling and punctuation

No strong writing without them!

 

So strong writing makes effortless reading. Your readers shouldn’t be able to see through your writing devices. They should be able to believe in, and care about, your characters so much that when the Gamemakers announce that “both tributes from the same district will be declared winners if they are the last two alive”, they call out Peeta’s name at the same time Katniss does.

Do you agree? What makes “strong writing” according to you? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section!

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ROW80 Check-In 9 – Prologues: How and why to write one

Hello gentle readers and fellow writers,

Last week I came across an interesting post on the MythicScribes forum. It is a great forum for fantasy writers and a member called Lunaairis posted his thoughts on prologues on August 17th 2012.

Usually, writers are advised to avoid including prologues at the beginning of their novels. Prologues should be banned because they most likely are 1) unnecessary lengthy narrative of back story, 2) boring scene-setting that can be cut without harming the plot, 3) information that should be your chapter One, 4) something that readers don’t read anyway.

However many published Epic Fantasy books do start with a prologue and Lunaairis explains in his post when and how this is acceptable:

“I was looking at a post about prologues and I couldn’t help but think that there seems to be something wrong with people’s reactions to them. I for one like prologues as they can set the tone for the rest of the story; When they are prologues and not just masses of text. After reading Farlander (by Col Buchanan) I have realized what makes a prologue good, and why more fantasy stories need them.

1) A prologue should be like the story you will tell but in miniature, it should be no longer then your longest chapter and should never be split into parts (I’ve seen this done and it’s just horrendous). That said you should always leave the prologue to be the last thing you write. A prologue is so much like a door hinge I can’t even begin to explain. It is best used with the idea to gather readers; it’s a chapter the average man/woman or child can read at a book store to get a feel for the authors writing without going into the main story. It is what an author should use for getting the reader from the real world to their fictional world. Again like a door hinge it keeps the book open for the public eye to grab a glimpse.

2) The author can also use the prologue to slip in information that the other characters in the novel might already know (if it is important to the story). You wouldn’t want to write a chapter about a city falling to pieces, only for it to have no purpose for the rest of the story, waste-of-space much? (…) Don’t allow prologues to become information dumps, remember you are trying to get the average reader into your story, don’t bombard them with names that won’t or can’t be explained till 2-3 chapters in.

3) Prologues, after keeping in mind that they should not be long, they should also not be short. A prologue consisting of 1-4 paragraphs is rather useless; all the information presented could be bleed into the speech of some of the characters. Removing the need for the prologue all together. If there are only 1-4 paragraphs it’s likely that you just wrote an information dump and should delete it anyways.

4) There should be a story going on in your prologue, a beginning and an end. Introduce a key character in your story, Maybe a villain? The main character? A magic object? Something that has reason to exist, and has wants and needs. Present them a challenge; it could be a rival, a theft (the theft of a person’s life, an object, a person or a way of thinking) or maybe the end of a cycle. (…) Remember when coming up with the challenge, it may be a good idea to take the main problem of you fiction but show it on a miniature scale. If your story is about racism show a glimpse of the racism here.

5) Now show off the character or object’s skills by somehow getting them though the situation. This is a great way to get your reader interested in the character or object they are going to follow for the rest of the book. It’s time to show their talents, as this character or object may not be the only main character or object of the novel but is the one that pulls the story along, and likely won’t be showing up again for a few chapters.

6) Never talk history in the prologue; write as it happens. Do you remember sitting in those boring history classes with your unexciting history teacher? Thank god I loved history and never had a crappy history teacher. But I know other people who have and I also know they don’t like to read about it in their fiction, so keep it out of there! There is a time and a place to talk about the last great war between the Jubjubwicks and the Didolgigs but the prologue is not the place to be talking politics from a second source.”

So what do you think? Do you agree with Lunaairis? Have you included a prologue in your novel? If yes, what is it like? Or are you against prologues? Let me know in the comment section!

Finally, my update: I have had a good writing week after a very lazy summer on the writing front. I haven’t worked on my WIP, but I have written a short story, worked on my query letter and devised a new editing plan for my WIP. Next week I’m planning on diving back into editing…

How are you fellow ROWers doing?  Here is the Linky to the list of participants.

Happy writing!

by

Gearing Up To Get An Agent Blogfest – Meet and Greet

Hello gentle reader,

this month I am taking part in an exciting blogfest: Gearing Up To Get An Agent (aka GUTGAA) hosted by the amazing Deana Barnhart.

What is GUTGAA? you ask.

GUTGAA is a blogfest Deana Barnhart started last year “in the hopes that those of us striving to reach “agented” status could come together, polish those pitches and have fun at the same time.”

Today is the first day of this blogfest and it’s Meet and Greet time… If you want to join the fun and sign up for the blogfest, you can do so here. Then add a Meet and Greet post on your blog and you will have from today until Friday, Sept 7th to visit others’ blogs and get to know them. Have fun and visit as many as you can!

Questions for the Meet and Greet
–Quick bio

I am a writer of YA High Fantasy novels. I live in an English castle, travel extensively, read voraciously, listen to music bands few people have heard of and watch too many movies to count. In case you are wondering, I also have a full-time job, so I mostly write at odd hours and drink a lot of tea. I am also a member of the British Fantasy Society.

–Where do you write?
At home, at my desk in my living room. From my window I can see the castle’s park and the beautiful English countryside beyond. No need for a retreat for me!
–Quick. Go to your writing space, sit down and look to your left. What is the first thing you see?
My armchair. This is where I sit to read. And I read A LOT.
–Favorite time to write?
Evenings.
–Drink of choice while writing?
Tea!
–When writing , do you listen to music or do you need complete silence?
I need music to write. I even wrote a blog post about my favourite writing music.
–What was your inspiration for your latest manuscript and where did you find it?
I write epic fantasy. I have had my WIP in me FOREVER. I think I got the inspiration for it about ten years ago. I wanted to write a story with a strong female teenager as the main character. I also liked the idea of a fantasy land where humans were the lesser people. Finally I wanted to write a love story that would be as realistic as possible, although set in an imaginary land.
–What’s your most valuable writing tip?

Write every day, and NEVER give up.

Thanks for stopping by! Feel free to comment below and I will definitely pay your blog a visit.

Also you can enter my 100 Followers Giveaway here and win YA books!

Finally, I would love to hear from you on Twitter if you wish to know me better.