Latest Books

I love watching DIY home-improvement shows. Watching someone demo a wall or grout tile or reorganize a closet is Madeline catnip. In my free time I rearrange my furniture, wallpaper the odd wall, and reorganize my own closets for fun. (I have an odd idea of fun.)...

I spend a lot of time talking about Perfect Pacing when it comes to the overall work, but scene pacing is incredibly important too. This is the rate that your scene progresses. Some scenes we want to be fast; others slow, even languid. It just depends on what’s...

It’s the mystery that keeps authors up at night: What do publishers really want in a middle grade or YA? Well, seven things. AUDIENCEThey want a manuscript that takes into account the DUAL NATURE of the audience. When it comes to children’s novels, you’re writing for...

Novels, even fantasies and science fiction, need to be realistic. There have to be things the reader relates to in order to connect with the story. Something has to ground them to the world you’re building, and realism does that. However, you can have too much of a...

For many years, I spent most of my days in a bookstore. First for one year at Barnes & Noble, and later more years than I can remember at BookPeople in Austin. I have always believed that everyone in publishing from the author to the publisher would benefit from...

One of the best ways to know whether or not your scene is meant for your story is to consider whether or not it’s doing Double Duty. Double Duty is the concept that every scene needs to be doing at least 2 of the following 3...

One of the key parts of any children’s book revision plan is the chapter or scene breakdowns. These are chapter (or scene) summaries that highlight the main points of the existing edit. Chapter summaries can be extensive multi-page entries for each chapter, or they...

Recently my writing partner and I were CLEARLY the main characters in someone’s novel. First my writing partner came down with a kidney stone. That alone is enough misery to fuel fifty novels. My ex was in town staying with me, so he stayed with our kid while I went...

Editors are amazing. (Yes, I may be biased, seeing that I am one.) But editors have their limits. A good editor—whether they’re a freelance editor your hire or one that works for your publisher—is there to help you make your book the best that it can be. But they...