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Reading in the Dark: A Brief History of Books for the Blind
April 22nd, 2015
Imagine this scenario: you’re reading Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy and you come across a description of Lisbeth Salander’s wasp tattoo. You realize that you’ve never seen a wasp— in fact, you’ve never seen the color yellow. Think of Anne Shirley’s red hair, or the sea and sky that “look like fabric” in To the Lighthouse. With no visual referent, what do those words mean to you?
Read Column →5 Problems with the Humble Protagonist
April 22nd, 2015
As an independent editor, I work with a lot of novels over the course of a year, and a lot of protagonists too. Some are straight-ahead heroes and some are antiheroes; most fall somewhere in between. Then there's what I've come to think of as the Humble Protagonist (HP).
Read Column →Let's Read About Sex
April 21st, 2015
Everyone who read the above title and clicked away to watch a Salt-N-Pepa video, just know that I forgive you and understand your plight. Regardless of which Salt-N-Pepa video you chose. As for the rest of you, welcome to this column about sex. I'm hoping this qualifies me as a "sex columnist" and maybe even a "sexpert." Two goals met with one column? Not bad.
Read Column →The Girl Who Starred In All The Books
April 20th, 2015
With the English translation of Stieg Larsson's first Millennium trilogy novel, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, hitting American bookshelves in late 2008, a publishing trend took its first steps out of the primordial ooze and ventured onward. The release of the second and third books, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest, respectively, helped spread this trend further, solidifying its prevalence even today, seven years later.
Read Column →Path to Publication 3.6: Blurbs And Reviews, Incoming
April 20th, 2015
Polis Books will release my debut novel, New Yorked, in June, with the follow-up, City of Rose, slated to follow in 2016. This is a column about taking a book over the finish line. Let's talk about blurbs. Asking for blurbs is really awkward.
Read Column →Exercises All Writers Need To Do
April 17th, 2015
Once upon a time, there was a romantic vision of writers treating their bodies terribly. Opiates, pharmaceuticals, alcohol, and cigarettes were an integral part of the tortured writer stereotype. Elizabeth Barrett Browning was known for her opium addiction. William S.Burroughs was a heroin addict. Then there are the myriad of writers, past and present, with alcohol issues: Hemingway, Bukowski, Fitzgerald, Poe, Bukowski, to name a few…
Read Column →14 Reasons We Love List Articles
April 17th, 2015
In my time as a freelancer, I've written hundreds of list articles. That's not a joke or an exaggeration. Literally hundreds. When I pitch multiple article ideas, the ones most commonly selected seem to be the list articles. And hell, even when I write articles in a non-list form, lo and behold, an editor decides to number my sub-headings and transform my work into a list.
Read Column →The Minds of Others: 6 POV Hacks for Fiction
April 16th, 2015
Point of view (POV) in fiction is often one of the hardest elements for new writers to master, with good reason. Regardless of whether you choose the first person (I), third person (he or she), or second person (you) in any of their various incarnations, there are things that you, the author, know that your protagonist cannot. Things, perhaps, you would like your reader to know.
Read Column →Brainstorm Your Next Novel with Fiasco - Part 2
April 15th, 2015
Welcome back to Brainstorming with Fiasco! In the previous installment we figured out who some of the characters of our fictional town were and what kind of relationships connected them. Now it’s time to fill in some more Details about the town and what the characters are trying to do in it. There are three types of Details:
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