I attended a workshop with an agent who had critiqued my MG novel at a conference. This is her information. For fiction stories only. NOT for NF. I don’t rep NF. Synopsis: Conveys narrative arc. Characters. Actions and motivations make sense. Who changes. Entire plot in a single page. Third person present tense, even if…
Editors—some good, some bad Usually the edits the editors ask for are necessary to make your book more marketable. Recommendations [are] almost always beneficial. … First writers sometimes won’t finish a book because they revise too much. Rosen doesn’t revise until whole book is written. One author wrote draft; then rewrote the whole book from…
Many years ago I attended a conference presentation on Agent Hunting. Though I do not have an agent (and I haven’t looked for one yet), if you are interested in children’s literature, attending SCBWI conferences–regional or national–would be a good place to start.
No, I am not saying you are a dummy. I need to send a manuscript to an editor. She would take it as a whole manuscript or as a sketch dummy. To be treated as a professional, work must look professional. This means it is essential to know what a manuscript should look like. WritersRumpus.com…
How Many Words? For a while there, I felt like I was rolling the dice to figure this out. I found a lot of different information about how long different kinds of children’s books should be. I found Literaticat’s Wordcount Dracula to be the clearest and quickest to read. She may have also explained why…
It depends. A children’s book editor, writing at Editorial Anonymous, explains the pagination of picture books and how the numbers may not mean what you think they mean. It is a clear and useful resource.
Johnell Dewitt writes on her blog about Illustration Notes. She discusses examples of how NOT to include them and when they are actually necessary. She quotes one author and interviews another who have had illustration (or art) notes. If it is essential, then you can include it. Are you sure it is essential? Could you…
Sean McCarthy, founder and sole agent for Sean McCarthy Literary Agency, gave a presentation at Austin’s SCBWI conference. Essentials: character-based humor (can be gross) STEAM (science, tech, engineering, art, math) They must compete with established titles AND have a smaller market than picture books, but that market is growing.
Sean McCarthy, founder and sole agent for Sean McCarthy Literary Agency, discussed what makes a work viable. He gave four requirements. It has an arresting commercial hook. It has an internal or emotional core. Character transformation takes place. It has a fresh, original concept. Related to that, I believe, was his comment on issue-driven versus character-driven…
Sean McCarthy, founder and sole agent for Sean McCarthy Literary Agency, gave a presentation at Austin’s SCBWI conference. He said that the author has much more work to do than just “write a book.” I think a lot of this should be done once you have a solid idea (more than a title or a…
