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Month: May 2018

Writing a Strong Beginning

Writing a Strong Beginning

If a writer wants readers, it’s important to give a novel a strong beginning.  Here’s some of the advice you see scattered around in craft books. Start Where the Story Starts Miss Snark used to critique pages for her blog readers, and one of the things she did most frequently was cross out a few paragraphs or pages and say, “Your story starts here.” Readers need less preparation for the story than writers think they do. Start where something changes. Don’t…

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Quality in Young Adult and Middle-Grade Fiction

Quality in Young Adult and Middle-Grade Fiction

I recently had some trouble enjoying a middle-grade book, so I went over to Goodreads to see if anyone else reacted the same way. One negative review started off: “This was a book for kids, so it didn’t have to be great literature or anything.” At that point, my blood pressure shot up, and I stomped away to do laundry. Dismissing whole genres Let’s try that sentence out on other kinds of books. It was a mystery, so it didn’t…

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