How to Avoid “Automatic Rejection” of Your Mystery Novel (via Global Mysteries)

More great advice from Nancy Curteman that actually applies to any novel. And as always, she says it in a lot less words than I would have. When you submit your mystery novel to an agent or publisher you hope to some day see it on a bookstore shelf. Then why do so many excellent [...]

Breaking the Rules

Okay, I’ve been writing about Writer’s Rules on and off since firing up this blog in 2002. What about when the time comes to break the rules? Depends on what rules you break. For example, I’m planning a novel in which nobody gets killed. For me that’s a definite leap forward. I’ve got one friend [...]

Why I Read Pascal’s Story (and why I won’t read yours)

I could be opening a can of worms here, but I’m going to talk about it anyway because it’s what I did for my writing this evening. I fulfilled a long overdue social obligation. Namely, I gave someone a critique of a short story and made some suggestions on which magazines to send it to, [...]

It’s a Novel

Slack jawed and bleary eyed. Another long day. Busy at work, a farewell party for a cousin when I got home, and then pounding the keys on And/News. Well, congratulate me. It’s a novel. That’s right, I passed the 40,000 word mark tonight. That’s where the territory of the novel begins, although you’d be hard [...]

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.