Columns

10 Essential Elmore Leonard Novels: A Eulogy

August 23rd, 2013

Photo courtesy The Hollywood Reporter I remember the first time I came across the name Elmore Leonard. It wasn’t on the cover of one of his forty-five novels, nor was it in the credits of one of the umpteen feature films that have been adapted from his work. It was on some shoddy internet forum I frequented as a teenager.

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Culling The Classics: The Jungle Books

August 23rd, 2013

That's right, we're culling two classics for the price of one this time: Rudyard Kipling's seminal children's collections, The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book. Time out—children's classics? Who started the rumor that these books were for kids? Do parents actually know what's in these things, or are they trusting that Walt Disney stuck as close as possible to the source material? We're going to have to clear up a few things.

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The 7 People You Meet in Workshop Hell

August 22nd, 2013

Hell is other people with red pens. Workshops: They’re like that dream where you walk into a classroom, only to discover you’re naked. In an ideal world, everyone in your writing group would be “naked” as well—open to the exchange of criticism and ideas, while remaining aware of how vulnerable the process makes us all.

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Gently Curving Prose: 10 Rules for Writing New Adult Fiction

August 22nd, 2013

Along with drone strikes, Obamacare and the wisdom of Kim Kardashian’s wardrobe policy, self-pubbing is one of those incendiary topics that divide the world into two camps: those who like it and those who don’t. But while the rest of us sit on either side of this unbreachable opinion-chasm throwing freshly sharpened blogs at each other, one group of authors has proved self-pubbing can work by quietly making a shitload of cash.

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How NOT to Get an Agent (And What to Do After You Get One)

August 21st, 2013

This is a column with practical advice about ways to improve your chances of finding and retaining a good agent to represent you and help sell your work to a publisher. Some of the suggestions I proffer are obvious, some not so obvious. But I write this as someone who has maintained an excellent relationship with one literary agency for 27 years and 8 books. I think I know what I’m talking about.

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Storyville: Manipulating Your Readers

August 21st, 2013

Most of what we do as authors is in order to get an expected response from our readers, right? You don’t want them laughing when they should be crying, snickering at a bad sex scene, or rolling their eyes at what should be a terrifying passage. So how do you get your audience to respond? Here are some general suggestions as well as some specific tips that I hope will help you to get into the heart, mind, soul, pants, and nightmares of your audience.

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No One Cares About Your Life Story: 9 Tips for a Better Author Bio

August 20th, 2013

“Please provide a bio of 150 words or less.” How many times have you been asked to sum yourself up in the number of words TV Guide allots for the description of the SyFy Channel movie of the week?

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Listen Up!: 5 Awesome Lit-Based Podcasts

August 19th, 2013

Once upon a time, there were radio programs. Many of them specialized in specific topics like sports, news, arts and, of course, music. The shows had personal identities. The topics were discussed, music was played, and everyone who listened felt enlightened and fuzzy.

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Genderbending Genre: The Left Hand of Darkness

August 19th, 2013

To paraphrase Ursula K. Le Guin, science fiction changed in the 60s. Whatever the cause and whatever the name (New Wave, for example), there was a movement towards experimental forms and a shift from hard science fiction (focused on the hard sciences - physics, chemistry, etc) toward so-called “soft” science fiction which, as you might expect, focuses more on sociology and psychology. It was a much needed shift.

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Ask the Grammarian: 'Too' Many Commas, Sentence Fragments, and Rhetoric

August 19th, 2013

First there was Ask the Lit Coach, with Erin Reel. Then came Ask the Agent, with Bree Ogden. Now, LitReactor proudly presents: Ask the Grammarian, with the one and only, Taylor Houston. You've got questions about grammar and usage, she's got answers. Have at you! First of all, thank you to everyone that submitted questions. Let’s get started:

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