I write stuff for kids...and muse on writing, children's books, and the publishing industry in general

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Twitter Tip Thursday

Thought I would try something different today and share some of the tips and useful links that I've come across on Twitter this week. So here goes:


Trends:
  • For YA, dystopias remain king @Ginger_Clark
  • Other kids updates: people want middle grade more than last year. Contemporary YA girls books, too @Ginger_Clark
Finding an agent:
  • In today's "closed-to-queries" climate, how can writers get agents? A few tips: @JodyHedlund
  • How to pick an agent if you write for multiple audiences @Kid_Lit
  • "The world of children's literature is packed with promise and savvy literary agents." Top 20 PB Agents... @KatApel
Blogging:
On being a writer:
  • I think confidence is important to one's craft. Fear--of offending, of criticism, of failing--cripples your creativity @DiaReeves
Writing tips:
  • Consider the names you give your characters. Some hard to pronounce names can be a distraction @Georgia_McBride
  • Try to define your story in 2-3 sentences. If you cannot, you are not ready to tell it @Georgia_McBride
  • Hope these links help all you fab pb writers: @JillCorcoran
  • I see a lot of newbies writing w/o direction to the story=and then this happened then this and that. What is the story about? @Georgia_McBride
  • I don't think in terms of describing every little thing so much as creating an image, something people will remember @DiaReeves
Revision tips:
  • Don't hold on to words that don't add value to your story. Delete them. You'll think up more words. Better words @Georgia_McBride
  • One rule I have is to read dialogue without tags. If I can't tell who said it by tone and voice, it's not good enough @kellyhashway
  • Stephen King says to put the ms in a drawer for a month before editing <-- Works wonders @Tangynt
And my favorite tips for this week (you can tell I'm revising my manuscript right now!):
  • To revise, I change the font before I read it again to trick my eyes into thinking I've never read it before @DiaReeves
  • An oldie & a goodie. The 10 mistakes writers don't see - but can fix easily when they do, yay! @emiliaplater

5 comments:

Bast said...

These are all great tips and links! Thanks! I'm looking forward to finding some tips of my own on Twitter.

Marieke said...

Ooh, very helpful! Thanks! :D

Melissa Gill said...

I thought I put a comment up here already about how much I appreciate the twitter updates. Very bad things would happen if I tried to twitter while at work, and since I spend 33% of every day here I haven't been able to do the twitter thing to well. This is SUPER HELPFUL.

And I gave you the One Lovely Blog award on my blog.

Rachael Harrie said...

Thanks guys. I might make this a regular feature of Rach Writes... if you find it useful :)

@Melissa, thanks so much for the award :) Tee hee, you've got me curious now about all the "very bad things" that would happen at work!

H said...

Changing the font sounds like an awesome trick. Thanks for the great list :)

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