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28 April 2014 - What's new

28 April 2014
  • This week we're pleased to add the second part of The Essential Guide to Writing for Children 2 - Before You Write: What is My Story Going to be? Suzy Jenvey starts with: 'However short your potential story is, you will still need to start with a clear idea of who it is aimed at, and how the characters and story will develop. Here are some basic rules that you should follow in the planning stage...' and ends with 'Don't be tempted to ‘ambulance-chase' - i.e. to write a story similar to something that has just been hugely successful. Publishers are looking for genuine originals.'
  • 'The UK's first ever Young Adult Literature Convention will take place at the London Film and comic Con 2014 from 12 to 13 July. This gives authors who are writing for a YA audience the chance to meet other authors, to take part in a host of author events with publisher stands promoting new and upcoming titles. The UK children's Laureate, Malorie Blackman, has put her weight behind the convention and will act as curator and director but the truth is that it's quite late in the day for YA books to start enjoying this amount of attention. News Review
  • We've added Sheenagh Pugh's writing blog to our Writers' Blogs but would really like to have some suggestions of other writers' blogs we could add to this section. In the meatime there's a wealth of links in 24 separate lists linking us to hundreds of recommended sites. Please email us with any suggestions.
  • How far apart are crime writing and poetry? 'I have been interested in both equally all my life. All through childhood I wrote verses and mysteries. There is, for me, one connection: Structure. My poetry is metrical, rhyming. My crime novels are highly structured. I never start out with a dead body. I start out with an impossible scenario. Opening questions should be mysterious, weird, intriguing and contain the seeds of the solution. The structure has to be meticulous - I'm a structure freak...' Sophie Hannah, author of nine novels, including The Telling Error and five poetry collections, in the Observer, quoted in our Comment column.
  • Our WritersServices Glossary gives an A-Z search which will list all mentions of a topic or reference on the site and provides an easy way of exploring the archive.
  • Our links of the week: from Sam Edenborough a thoughtful piece about the changing role of the agent - BookBrunch - Authors, agents and self-publishing; science fiction love it or hate it (most of us) The Underrated, Universal Appeal of Science Fiction - Chris Beckett - The Atlantic; the latest on amazon's finances BBC News - Amazon revenue up but offset by increasing expenses; a very personal view of YA Lamp Lighters and Seed Sowers: Tomorrow's YA | Publishing Perspectives and the latest strange story from fan fiction Vampire Writer L.J. Smith Bites Back - WSJ.com.
  • Do you have a problem with writing your own synopsis for your submission package? Our Synopsis-writing service can help. Or, perhaps if you're self-publishing, you need help with writing your blurb?
  • 'Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money.''Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money.' Molière in our Writers' Quotes.