July 2010

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How to Turn Off an Agent

A lot has been written about the proper way to approach a literary agent. Equally helpful, I think, are some guidelines on how not to approach an agent. Do any of the following and you’ll be sure to turn an agent right off. Educate him about publishing. Why do some writers feel compelled to begin [...]

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Writing the Reaction Section

In The Marshall Plan®, the basic units of story are the action section and the reaction section. In my previous post I discussed writing the action section. In this post I’ll discuss writing the reaction section. To recap . . . We’re writing a vampire romance in which our heroine, Sidora (a vampire), has the [...]

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Writing the Action Section

In The Marshall Plan®, a novel consists of “sections.” Sections can be either action sections or reaction sections. In simplest terms, in an action section, things happen. In a reaction section, people react to the things that happened. In this post I’m going to review the basics of structuring an action section. I’ll cover the [...]

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