Plot and structure are two of the foundations of a great novel. I have previously discussed the high-level structure of a novel—the three-act structure—and the micro structure—scene structure. But knowing how to write a great scene or structure a novel is no guarantee of a great novel. Great novels need a plot. And conflict. I …
Over the last two weeks we’ve covered comma usage and the punctuation of dialogue in fiction. Today I’m going to discuss seven less common punctuation marks, and how they’re used in modern fiction: Brackets (Parentheses) Colon Ellipsis Em-Dash En-Dash Hyphen Semicolon Note that I am focussing on the use of these punctuation marks in modern …
Every now and again, I come across a self-published novel where the author doesn’t know how to punctuate dialogue correctly. This can make it difficult for the reader to follow the conversation, because it’s hard to work out which character is talking. The good news is that this is one of the easiest aspects of …
The comma is one punctuation mark where there is a large degree of judgement and personal preference. Our struggle with commas isn’t helped by some of the misinformation we’ve heard over the years. However, there are clear grammatical rules about how to use commas in fiction. Examples of correct comma usage include: To link coordinate …
I was contacted by someone with a question around trademarks on book titles. No, I’m not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, but it’s an interesting question to consider. A trademark is a form of intellectual property, as is copyright. But they are not the same thing. What is Copyright? Copyright applies to …
Over the last two weeks, we’ve discussed what a blog tour is, some of the different types of tour, and the tasks a tour organiser will need to complete. If you decide to organise your own blog tour, you’ll need to make time to undertake most of the activities a professional organiser would undertake. Today …
Last week, I discussed several different types of blog tour post. This week I’m looking at why you might choose to undertake a blog tour, and share two options around organising a tour. Unfortunately, your book doesn’t just “get” on a blog tour. Someone has to organise it—usually the publisher or the author. But before …
Yes, this is another blog post prompted by a question on Facebook. An author had seen blog tour posts, spotlighting books from authors, and wondered how an author got that kind of opportunity. It’s a good question. A blog tour is the modern online equivalent of a book signing tour. The author will “visit” several …
Why aren’t my Facebook Advertisements Converting into Sales? This question came from a Facebook group I’m a member of. The author said they’d spent thousands of dollars advertising their book on Facebook, yet never had an advertisement that actually “worked”. I’m going to leave aside the obvious question of why someone would spend thousands on …
It’s a new year, the time when many of us consider our plans for the year. If you’re anything like me, plans are often about the new things we want to do. The problem is we all have the same 168 hours in the week, and they’re already full. So where do we fit the …
