Sometimes it’s hard to know how to start a story, and that’s why I pulled together these opening scene examples. I’m going to talk a little more about first scenes than first lines, though I’ll mention some first lines, too. These are only some of the many good ways to start a novel. I know it can be hard to figure
Category: Writing Matters
Note: this post was originally part of a writing series, and some comments may refer to that. Beginning a big new writing project can be daunting for some of us, especially if we haven’t done it before… or if we haven’t done it in a while, and we’re trying to get back into the groove. Here’s my advice for getting ready for a
Hey y’all! I did a series of posts about personality traits for different zodiac signs, with the idea that they could inspire fictional characters in your writing. For everyone’s convenience, this post links to all of the ones in the series. (I formatted some of these differently than others, but I’m not changing it. I’m not a Virgo.) Click on the name
Hi friends! Welcome to my final post about using zodiac signs to create fictional characters. Whether you believe in astrology or not, it’s a fun way for writers to think about character development. I promised I would finish up this series before the end of the year. In before the lock! Let’s take a look at Pisces, the sign of
Last week I shared a list of agents accepting submissions of fantasy novels, but here are a bunch of publishers who accept unagented submissions. This list is mostly the same as my list of science fiction publishers, but there are some differences, and I figured it’s more convenient to have a list just for your genre. Clicking on the name of the
Hi friends! Welcome to the penultimate post in my series about using signs of the zodiac as inspiration for character development. This is going to be the easiest one of all, because I am such an Aquarius. Let’s take a look at the typical Aquarius personality type! Here are some good qualities of an Aquarius: humanitarian unconventional innovative idealistic curious
Last month, I posted a list of agents who represent science fiction, along with some of their recent comments about what they’re looking for. Honestly, it’s most of the same people here… but not all of the same people, and some of their requests here are specific to fantasy. It’s not a complete list, but it’s a long one! The Twitter