Archive - November, 2009

Fiction Addict Podcast

November 12, 2009 in Journal with 1 Comment

Yesterday, I had the chance to participate in a roundtable with Miriam Parker, Tosca Lee, and Jake Chism to discuss the impact of social media on the publishing industry. Miriam is part of the digital media team at Hachette Book Group, one of Ted’s publishers. Tosca Lee, of course, is an acclaimed novelist that many of you are probably familiar with. Some people would be surprised to know that she is also a consultant with the Gallup Organization and has a real mind for marketing.

So, check out the roundtable that Jake Chism hosted and listen in as we discuss what we’ve learned and how that translates for aspiring and success authors alike. Thanks, Jake, for inviting us. It was a lot of fun.

You can listen to it here: http://fictionaddict.com/2009/11/12/social-networking-and-publishing/

Too much magic

November 9, 2009 in Journal with 9 Comments

I scratched the words across the yellow page of my legal pad in red: Too much magic. Underlined it. Then I looked at my manuscript, sat back, and realized I had a problem.

But, let’s come back to that in a minute. First I want to talk about how I got to that point.

Lately, I’ve been reading books on screenwriting. Not because I want to be a screenwriter (I don’t, at least not yet), but because those brave men and women who write for the small and big screens understand storytelling better than 99% of the world. They certainly understand it better than I do, so I’m learning a lot along the way.

Why do they understand it better? Well, it’s because they have to. Their job is to distill all of the elements of a good story–the dialogue, characters, narrative, plot, all of it–into a thick reduction sauce that goes down smooth. It’s got to taste slow cooked, but has to be done in microwave time. They don’t have 400 pages to tell their story. They have 110 if they’re writing for movies. Less if they’re writing for TV. That means they must force the story down to its essence, which is ultimately what the audience cares about and will invest themselves in. If they do it right. Continue Reading…

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