Monday, August 29, 2011

Should I Share My Poetry and Fiction Online?

It's the "Catch-22" of publication: you want to publish your work, but many publishers want you to have following before they'll publish your work.  To get the following, though, you need to share your work online...but then it counts as "already published," and then you can't send it on to magazines or booksellers.(thanks to Luna S. for pointing this out!)  Read on to learn how you can navigate this tricky aspect of self-promotion.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Writing the Novel: Intertwining Plot, Conflict, and the Tapestry of Character Development


Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Novels are complex creatures. They involve a complex weave of characters and events which must still fascinate the reader from the first page to last.

The key to unlocking your novel lies in integrating the personal conflicts of each individual character with the central conflict of the whole novel.  The goal is to help the reader sympathize with your characters as they struggle not only to "solve" the core problem of the novel, but also as they try to face the dangerous facts of their own lives.