General Resources
The following sites have a little bit of everything!
- How to find a literary agent
- Formatting your manuscript
- Nathan Bransford
- Tahereh Mafi
- Agency Gate Keeper
- Literary Rambles
- Publisher’s Marketplace
- the AbsoluteWrite Water Cooler
- Query Shark
- KidLit.com
- Writer’s Digest
- Guide to Literary Agents
- YA Highway
- Writer Unboxed
- How a book gets published
Writing
The fun part! Links to help you in putting your ideas to paper (or keyboard).
- What in the world is high concept?
- How to be a faster writer.
- 5 Creative Flaws that will expose your lack of storytelling experience.
- Why there will never be a perfect time to write.
- 6 Structural problems writers face and how to fix them.
- When middles sag.
- The three writing tools you can’t live without.
- Five openings to avoid.
- Just call it freaking “green” already.
- The problem of the eureka moment.
- 5 Tips for writing better settings.
- Prologues – This side of hell.
- Tips on writing action scenes.
- How to S.W.O.T your story over the fence.
- First draft secrets.
- What isn’t said: Subtext in dialogue.
- 10 Ways to create a plot twist.
- The obvious symbolism police.
- Tips for improving dialogue in your novel.
- Character planning.
- Can you write a publishable first novel?
- Motivation = A glass of Water (one of Christina’s fave posts ever)
- 25 Things Writers Should Stop Doing
- Writing Toolbox (including weak verb converter and crutch words)
Revising
Some people love this stage of the process (Lauren); some people wake in the night screaming (Christina).
Querying
See also: kill me now.
This stage is tough, but we’ve got cookies, hugs, and we’ve found some amazing resources to help you get through it.
- Examples of good query letters
- The five signs you might be querying
- Why I say yes or no to YA queries: Pie Chart
- Why I reject queries
- Query letter Madlib style
- Pre-Query Woes
- Write your query first for a better book.
- Query Question: More on the dreaded synopsis
- Query Letter Checklist
- When a Literary Agent says YES (Evaluating an offer (or offers!) of representation)
