Category: JBIGGARBLOG

Over at Argh Inc last week Jenny posted a brief scene for an old book proposal and then explained why it had been turned down.  The reason came down to the lack of the dreaded “conflict lock.”  The antagonist was making things hard for the protagonist, but wasn’t  stopping her from reaching her goal.  I didn’t see the antagonist problem when I read the scene.  What I saw was two interesting, engaging characters bantering back and forth.  I would have happily kept reading – missing conflict-lock or not – because I had connected to the characters and wanted to know more about them.  Alas, the short scene was all there was.

By Lyn Horner

I’m a regular follower of the Western Romance Writers Please Post Here #2 discussion on Amazon’s Meet Our Authors forum. In late 2013, fifteen authors, including myself, agreed to put together an anthology of short stories intended to give readers a sample of each one’s writing style.

Rawhide ʼn Roses.(A Western Romance Anthology) is the result. Released a few days ago, the ebook is available on several sites, with a print version soon to follow.

I thought this project would be fun and it probably wouldn’t take much time since our stories were to be very short, from two to three thousand words. Right.

The only problem was I’d previously written only a couple short stories, flash fiction pieces that are actually part of bigger plot lines. How was I going to tell a complete romance in so few words? What had I gotten…

By Susan Spann

Today, we’ll continue the #PubLaw guest series on Copyright in the Contract with a look at copyright registration.

As I mentioned in last month’s post (you can read it HERE), copyright protection is automatic and attaches to qualifying works (like novels) at the time of creation. Formal registration is not required to create a copyright in an author’s work.

However, copyright registration does have several important benefits and should be addressed, specifically, in every publishing contract.

BENEFITS OF COPYRIGHT REGISTRATION

Authors should ensure that novels and other published works are promptly—and properly—registered with the copyright office on, or within three months after, the date of initial publication. Publishing an excerpt on your blog does not constitute “publication” for registration purposes – the term refers to the date the entire work is officially published – though if you publish your entire novel online, serially or otherwise, it…

by Jami Gold

If you’ve heard of beat sheets before, you might have heard about complicated forms or spreadsheets. I don’t know about you, but I don’t do math. Heck, I write my stories by the seat of my pants, so something that forces me to draft in a regimented way doesn’t appeal to me either.

Er, okay… So why am I talking to you about beat sheets when they’re a tool of outlining and a Microsoft Excel thing with lots of numbers?

It’s because everyone can use beat sheets—plotters, pantsers, and anyone in between. Trust me. *smile*

So a Beat Sheet Is a Sheet with Beats? Huh? What the heck Is a Beat?

Story beats are plot events that force the story to turn in a new direction (i.e. “turning point”). They’re the choices, dilemmas, and questions that make readers turn the pages. After each main beat…

This GORGEOUS image via Flickr Creative Commons, courtesy of Aimannesse Photography

Fear is a funny thing. We all experience it. Fear can be positive. It can keep us out of danger. It can stop us from making a super dumb decision, like getting in a car with a driver who’s been drinking too much. Fear can drive us to change for the better. At the same time, fear can cripple and, in extreme cases, can be deadly (I.e. suicide). Fear kills more dreams than failure ever has.

Fear is something we have to understand and respect. It’s a feeling and feelings do lie. Are feelings useful? Of course. But they can be affected by so many outside influences we are foolish to solely rely on them for guidance. Feelings can be affected by weather, diet, lack of exercise, a flat tire, a pile of unopened mail, stress, and on and on…

By Chuck Sambuchino

How does a literary agent define their “ideal client”? The question is extremely important because it’s one that factors into an agent’s mindset before and after they sign you.

If an agent has read your complete novel or book proposal and wants to sign you, the next step is almost always to arrange a telephone call where the two of you get to know one another. You ask the questions you want to ask about her and her style; she does the same regarding you and your style. During the phone conversation, the agent is trying to gauge whether you’re compatible enough with her to be signed as a new author in her stable. She’s already sizing up whether you can be a good, long-term client, or close to it.

Then after you sign with the agent, the two of you begin a long process of working…

BookBub’s mystery word cloud

Most of us on this blog haven’t thought too much as yet about what we’ll name our books when they’re finished. In class, we talked about the burden a title must bear—a good one should suggest genre, theme, tone, maybe even setting and character. Getting it right is difficult.

The words used in book titles have trends, according to BookBub, an ebook promotion  services company. Using data from the last six months, BookBub analyzed 3,850 books to see which words turn up most frequently in titles. BookBub looked at multiple fiction categories, including mysteries, thrillers, women’s fiction, historical fiction, action and adventure, horror, contemporary romance, historical romance, children’s and middle grade, and religious and inspirational, and built word clouds to show the results. Which word was used the most often across all categories?

I’m guilty of ending sentences with prepositions. I sometimes use “hopefully” wrong. Maybe I say, “I feel bad” instead of “I feel badly.” Even worse, just recently, I said “absolutely” in an interview (an overused answer, though absolutely viable–just a pet peeve). But here, I will give just a few pet peeves I’ve encountered in the last week–things that made me go grrrrr:

I’dof instead of I’d have. Example: I’d of thought he’d buy me that ice cream. How lazy is that? I know the brain doesn’t always coordinate with the fingers. They type what they sense from those crafty synapses, but this one frightens me. It sounds right!

Nonplussed means confused, not indifferent. Grrrr. She was so nonplussed when Justin Bieber knocked on her door (I’d be indifferent–and confused).

Aspiration vs. inspiration. Zac Effron–though I loved him–mixed up these two at the Oscars. As he said the…