Happy New Year! Traditionally, no matter how or when it is marked, a new year means a fresh start: cleaning out the old, revving up the new, and getting the stuff that’s stalled a kick in the pants. Depending on where one is in life, this can
Read more →Let’s talk about query letters for a minute. Specifically, let’s talk about the plot summary portion of a query letter. (Note: This post is going to have a bunch of spoilers for Mairelon the Magician, which I’m using as an example.) Query letters are conventionally limited to
Read more →I have a world I’ve fallen in love with but I’m afraid of putting out a story in my favorite world too early and having it not sell well because I haven’t gained some critical mass of skills or fans. I haven’t talked much about the business
Read more →Most people I know think of career paths as a series of jobs that ideally involve increasing levels of skills, responsibilities, pay, and status – something that’s applicable chiefly in terms of climbing the corporate ladder. But entrepreneurs and freelancers have career paths, too; they’re just a
Read more →Over the past few months I’ve had a number of writing questions that superficially are all very different, but that, if you back off a bit and look at them, boil down to “Ms. Wrede, why do people keep telling me that I can’t/shouldn’t use XYZ non-standard
Read more →First things first: I think we may have the comments problem fixed, though I may have to reapprove people the first time. I’ll try to keep an eye on it, but anyone who doesn’t see their remark after a day or so, please email me. A writing
Read more →As you can probably tell, we’re still having difficulties with the web site, off and on. Also, for anyone who still has my old email address, pcw@visi.com has permanently stopped working; the only one that works now is the one on the main web page, pcwrede@pcwrede.com. Thanks
Read more →Most of the positive things to remember about writing a synopsis are hard, because they run counter to everything else one gets told about writing. First among them is this: A synopsis is the place to tell, not show. Fiction writers have “show, don’t tell” pounded into
Read more →I’m going to pretend that this blog entry was delayed by the Labor Day Holiday on Monday. Which it sort of was; I lost track of “Wednesday, time for blog post” because my week started a day late. So mea culpa. Anyway, today I’m going to talk
Read more →Query letters are trickier than they ought to be, considering that they are only one page long. The fundamental problem is that everyone who sends out a query letter is desperate, and that includes writers who have long publication track records. Because the reason you’re sending out
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