Writer Unboxed

For me, it’s character development. Interesting characters, those that are different, unusual, flawed: those are the ones I remember. I love reading about people who shine, who stand out from the literary pack. By shine, I don’t mean perfection. Flaws make or break the character. I remember reading one manuscript when I was judging a [...]

21 Comments »

It never feels good to set a manuscript aside when the writing’s going well. Sadly, because I’ve never mastered the art of working on two books at once, I’m putting my half-written YA novel on hold for the next few weeks while I attend to the editorial report on a historical fantasy for adults, Flame [...]

48 Comments »

Do you research your novels to the point of obsession or do you not research at all?  Historical novelists are research junkies. Coming-of-age novelists mostly rely on memory. The majority of fiction writers fall somewhere in between: They study just enough so that their settings are accurate and their characters’ occupations feel real. The rest [...]

34 Comments »

So I’ve finally released an eBook that’s gaining some modest traction. It’s called the little book of SITCOM, and since you’ve been looking over my shoulder for the past year or so as I’ve tried to start a fire in this little self-publishing model of mine, I thought I’d share both the story of how [...]

13 Comments »

Therese busting in to officially welcome Carleen Brice to Writer Unboxed. This is her first post with us as a regular monthly contributor. We’re so glad to have you, Carleen! As you almost certainly know by now, Beyoncé and Jay Z recently welcomed a new baby into the world. They named her Blue Ivy Carter. Twitter [...]

68 Comments »

I like a good list. Nothing says “accomplishment” like a checked box or a crossed out To Do. I dare say lists are my closest companions. Several months ago, I did a WU post on “How to Kick Out a Fast First Draft.” In many ways, that step-by-step method was an example (or symptom) of what [...]

39 Comments »

I truly believe that this is a great time to be a writer. There’s so much concern, it seems to me, about the state of publishing–bookstores closing or stocking fewer and fewer books, publishing houses not accepting new submissions, or not supporting the authors they’ve already signed, or offering far lower advances than they once [...]

63 Comments »

Kath here. Many of you know longtime WU community member Lisa Janice Cohen from her lively guest posts and insightful comments over the years. It’s been a long road to publication for L.J., one that we can all sympathize. But now she’s announced that her YA fantasy novel THE BETWEEN is ready for launch. We [...]

17 Comments »

In third grade, they made us learn how to juggle. We started with scarves, because they have good hang time in the air, and they don’t make any noise if — okay, when – you drop them. So picture a room full of 8 and 9 year olds throwing these dingy, neon-colored squares of cloth all [...]

35 Comments »

Therese and Kath here to introduce the newest member of the WU team. You’ve seen independent editor Victoria Mixon here before. We love her for her ability to plumb the depths of craft knowledge, her commitment to making hard-to-understand concepts understandable, and her personality. So when she offered to provide a column to us for [...]

27 Comments »

People often ask me how I can get so much done. So I’m going to share with you a few of the strategies I’ve learned since I’ve been writing professionally. 1) Don’t multitask. When you’re writing, that’s what you need to be doing. Not watching TV, checking Twitter, email, doing laundry, talking to someone on [...]

51 Comments »

I stand before you today (okay, actually I’m probably sitting as you read this, but that sounds far less dramatic) in defense of what I think is an unfairly maligned piece of our language: the adverb. Other than the announcement that Snooki from The Jersey Shore had published a novel, I know of no other [...]

58 Comments »