Some writers find it surprising–or even constricting–to discover that publishing houses, agents, editors, and even readers care about a book’s word count. Why does word count matter? If my novel is 140,000 words rather than a traditional 90,000, is it …
Comes and Goes
Comes and goes? How does that subject line relate to writers and the publishing industry?
Sometimes a word picture or metaphor will communicate a hard-to-understand truth, which is why this blog post relies on two.
Much of the issue that …
Slice and Dice
When your work in progress is too long, as in WAY too long, how does a writer slice and dice words that are just shy of precious?
A client who gave me permission to share this but will remain anonymous …
Day Hikers
Cynthia Ruchti
In his book Letters from the Mountain (Rabbit Room Press), author Ben Palpant writes to his writer-daughter about this ascent up the mountain called writing. Page after page of this intimate encouragement of a well-traveled author-dad for his …
Set for a Reset
I’m borrowing inspiration today from one of my clients. As one year draws to a close and another is peeking over the horizon, she was compelled to consider, “What’s next?”
Rather than merely wonder, she pulled together a plan to …
Small Changes
Don’t small changes sound like they should naturally connect to small impact? Listed here are ten small changes with surprisingly potent impact on both nonfiction and fiction.
AND
And is a useful word. It can, however, become as unsightly …
The Role of Disappointment
blogger: Cynthia Ruchti
It may seem counterintuitive to consider the priceless role of disappointment, or that disappointment could bear any positive role, much less priceless. But many veteran authors–none of whom (NONE) have escaped disappointment–attest that lessons learned at the …
Conquer Dialogue Punctuation
I really wanted to title this “Conquer Dialogue Punctuation, PLEASE!” but thought it might be a bit much. It’s not easy. Let’s all admit that. No one is born knowing how. And writers have all kinds of excuses for struggling …
What to Leave Out
Are you writing a book proposal? Have you included everything an agent or editor might need? Great. Have you gone through to make sure you have left out the parts an editor or agent won’t want or need to see?…
When Life Gets in the Way
I posted the basic concept of this article a few years ago. In revisiting it, I found it at least as true now as it was then, if not more so. You may have observed something similar.
Life gets in …