Posts Tagged resources
February Edition YTBN Newsletter
The February 2010 edition of the Yet-to-be-Named Newsletter is online. It’s been moved to static pages for formatting purposes, but feel free to leave comments about the newsletter here! Check it out at http://www.ejourn.net/YTBNnews/feb2010/index.html
Craft Chat Notes: August 22, 2009
Posted by Kathie in craft chat, Meetings, resources on August 22, 2009
Upon the request of R. S. Alderson, the handout distributed during our meeting and craft chat about “Avoiding Adverbs and Describing Movement” is respectfully removed. Here are some resources that might be useful to writers:
A list of commonly used adverbs: Moms Who Think (http://www.momswhothink.com/reading/list-of-adverbs.html)
And while you’re there, slip over to the list of verbs, also located on that site and linked to the aforementioned page.
Raw #queryfail capture
Posted by Kathie in #queryfail, News, resources on March 9, 2009
Just uploaded is the complete capture of Twitter’s first #queryfail day. It is a raw file which hasn’t been stripped and shows image file names and other irrelevant information. However, if there are enough requests for the stripped version, we may post those at a later time. Click [here] to download (available only in rich text format). *update: also you can download an HTML file [here]. *
Also, under the “useful links” category in the navigation column, you’ll find a recently added “Creating a Pitch” which was written by the novelist Camy Tang. Definitely worth reading and even bookmarking for future reference.
How NOT to be targeted by the evil #queryfail
Posted by Kathie in #queryfail, Interact, News, resources on March 6, 2009
Thursday, March 6, 2009
Yesterday various agents and editors got together on Twitter and posted a wild rash of reasons they will reject a query letter. If you haven’t read the 140 or less character tweets we collected, now would be a really good time.
How do you write a winning query letter that won’t be labeled “fail” by these editors, agents and interns working in publishing houses? We’ve collected a few really good articles that will help you get your foot in the door. Take a gander: (hint: click the links as they’ll take you directly to the article we’re referencing.)
- Mystery author, S. W. Hubbard, has a great article here: www.swhubbard.com
- Ester Heller, Editor-in-Chief, Targum Press posted the following guidelines Nov. 2008: http://blogs.targum.com
- A summation of yesterday’s #queryfail experiment and lessons learned can be found here at the Belletrinsic blog: http://belletrinsic.blogspot.com
- Tara Lazar did a summation, too, that’s worth perusing and can be found here: http://taralazar.blogspot.com
- Colleen Lindsay, the literary agent (FinePrint Literary Management) responsible for yesterday’s #queryfail, has a site crammed full of useful information to pick through. Start here: http://theswivet.blogspot.com and be sure to look around the site, it’s very useful!
- Jill Corcoran has a very well put together “how to write a query letter” post that’s very timely, too, as it was published on March 1st, 2009: http://jillcorcoran.blogspot.com Be sure to check out the posts she links to as well (run your cursor over the page to find the links which aren’t underlined). Bookmark the post as it is a great resource!
Still need more? Want a template of sorts? Short of sending out the monkeys to write it for you (and no, we won’t do that — didn’t you read yesterday’s capture of the #queryfail tweets?), Nathan Bransford with Curtis Brown LTD provides you with a great “Mad Lib” style query letter. Just be sure to change it up a bit so it’s more personalized! Go check it out at: http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com/2008/03/query-letter-mad-lib.html
If you have your own tips, winning recipe, experience to share, by all means, leave a comment! Good luck, too!
Resources – Dialect
The following is a list of resources for writing dialect. This goes in conjunction with today’s craft chat on dialect.
- Writing Dialect: It’s in the Rhythm by Cameron Michaels
- How to Avoid Writing Dialect in Plays
- Dialect Survey Maps – A collection of maps showing the regional variations in terms and pronunciations in the US.
- Writing Dialect in Fiction by Tony Burton – Contains several examples from classic literature.
- Using Dialect in Fiction by Jennifer Jensen – Another discussion of use of dialect.
- Writing Accents and Dialects by Charles Carson – Includes some caution that how you write accents and dialects may say more about you than about the characters.
- Write stuff: Avoid using dialect, phonetic spelling by Rusty Lang – Advice on using dialect and phonetic spelling in journalistic writing.
- The International Dialects of English Archive – "IDEA was created in 1997 as a free, online library of primary source recordings for the performing arts." Includes transcripts of the audio samples. Note: Each audio sample begins with the person reading a passage. You may want to skip past this to the unscripted speech.
- Internet Archive – Contains many freely available movies and audio recordings. May require some digging to find the dialect you’re looking for.
- radio-locator and Web-Radio – Search for radio stations; results will show you which ones you can listen to over the Internet. Both include search by state.
A Challenge
Are you looking for a challenge, something to spark your writing or redirect it a bit? Check out Six Sentences. Writers are challenged to write a story that’s a mere six sentences long. Grasp control of the semi-colon, use those colons and dashes and you not only might create a masterpiece, but even the longest 6-sentence short story in the universe!
Give it a try and make it a mainstay at SixSentences.BlogSpot.com
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