Day: October 23, 2013

By Chuck Sambuchino

Literary agents are full of great advice for writers. That’s why, whenever I am concluding an interview with an agent, I always end the encounter by asking “Is there any other piece of advice you’d like to discuss?”

This open-ended question often draws a fantastic answer, as the agent’s most passionate advice will pour out.

That’s why I’ve gone through a whole bunch of literary agent interviews and cobbled together some of the best writing tips that agents have passed on over the years. There was so much good material that I had to break it down into multiple columns. This is Volume I, and you can check out agents’ helpful and inspiring advice below.

And I want to take a moment and say that I’m excited about being a recurring new contributor to Writers in the Storm. You will be seeing more columns from me on…

This November, I’m trying National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). 30 days, 50,000 words – that’s about 1,667 words per day. And I am terrified.

Generally, I write short form fiction and poetry. I’ve started countless novels, but they’re all currently lying about in various stages of abandonment. I have trouble finishing what I start, and I don’t know if it’s just because I don’t plan properly, or I get bored, or I don’t do enough research. But for one reason or another, I’ve never finished a novel. And I would really, really like to.

I owe this adventure mainly to a couple of very creative friends of mine. You can check out two of their blogs here and here. The point of NaNoWriMo is not to create a brilliant masterpiece or shining work of literary genius, although I’m sure some people will. It’s more about giving you the push…

By Sharla Rae

I’m sharing not one list today, but two. The first one covers shades of the basic color spectrum. The second deals with adjectives describing color and the possible “conditions” of color, that is, how it’s used. But Writing in living color is more than just knowing and choosing color descriptions. It’s showing the reader the story in living color even when “no” colors are mentioned.

Here’s how Laura Drake did it in her book, The Sweet Spot.  In this excerpt, the focus is not on the color but the “entire” picture the character Belle presents. Only three basic colors are used. Remove the color terms and the reader would still see this scene in living color.

At the end stood a woman perusing a dog-eared catalog – a woman Char had never met, but recognized from the gossip. This was that new Yankee that moved…