Miss Snark, who has become my new hero over the past few months, has been running her very well-attended Happy Hooker Crapometer over the last week or so.
The idea was that people would send in the hooks they’re including (or preparing to include) in their query letters, and Miss Snark evaluates them in her deliciously no-holds-barred manner. (I really hope she’s still running this when I finally have a book ready to share. Her advice, though blunt, is wonderful. Or maybe it’s wonderful because it’s so blunt.)
Finally frustrated by people who couldn’t write a hook after she shared so many good examples, she finally offered a basic form to help people start their hook. (As she reminds us repeatedly, it takes more than just this, but these are the basics of a good hook.)
Components of a good hook, care of Miss Snark:
- X is the main guy
- Y is the bad guy
- They meet at Z and all L breaks loose
- If they don’t solve Q, then R starts, and if they do, then it’s L squared.
It occurs to me, though, that you could also use this to help yourself work out a story that’s stuck in your head or perhaps one that is giving you trouble as you try to capture it on paper. Again, not as the entire cure-all, but just to get yourself started or through a rough patch.
Posted by Ceara as Writing Prompts, Resources at 8:23 AM EST
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I’ve been sorting through and cleaning up my del.icio.us links lately in some sort of attempt to make them more usable. I was amazed how many copywriting links I had. I was even more amazed at how similar the saved articles and blog posts are.
The majority of them cover the basic rules of copywriting, boiled down here:
- Use short sentences
- Allow plenty of white space
- Don’t lose sight of your audience
- Tell a story
Honestly, these rules work for just about any area of online writing.
Posted by Ceara as Uncategorized at 8:18 AM EST
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I thik I’ve nearly always looked for some way to share what I know, be it through teaching, doling out advice on IM, or writing these blogs. My philosophy is simple: If I know something you need to know, then I want to share what i know with you.
Maybe that’s why I’m slowly turning my entrepreneurial desires toward creating informational products. Right now, I have an idea list that’s going to take me the next two years alone to work my way through. It’s kind of exciting.
Will it bring in enough to sustain itself? I don’t know. Will it fulfill my need to share what I know with the world? Hopefully. Will anyone find what I know helpful? Only time can tell.
For now, I just know that I’m going to be a very busy person, just in a different direction than I have been busy.
Posted by Rebecca as Uncategorized at 8:14 AM EST
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I am a post-it note junkie. I keep one regular square pad and four label pads in my portable desk. I keep more label pads in my desk. Some of my books and one of my bulletin boards are covered in post-it notes. The Fruits Basket lap board hung over my computer has even become a home for these wayward bits of colorful paper.
I think nothing of grabbing a post-it note and writing all sorts of things on them at work, often using them in lieu of my notebook when I forget my notebook. I use them for craft projects when I’m bored. There’s almost nothing I wont use a post-it note for!
Thankfully, I’m not the only one who suffers love for the ever-versatile post-it note!
Posted by Rebecca as Uncategorized at 8:21 AM EST
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While I’m sitting here working on a wide variety of projects, two keep jumping out at me, begging me to finally get them started.
The teacher in me is looking to write resource books for kids on math and writing. So many of my students have begged me to write the math one that I’ve been slowly planning it out. And everyone is in love with the hero of my writing book, so I have to write that one, too.
That’s a benefit of being both a teacher and a writer. I can take what I know and compile it into a resource that other people can make use of. In fact, that’s a entrepreneurial task for me for the upcoming year. There’s a lot trapped in this little mind, and it would love to go forth and be shared with other people. That’s actually why I went in to teaching, and perhaps these books would permit me to be able to teach more people.
Hmm…knowledge products… Now if we could just make the pages work on here. I have articles that I think you guys might enjoy!
Posted by Rebecca as Uncategorized at 8:10 AM EST
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One of my favorite articles to share with people who are up in arms over the quality of fan fiction is this old great one about the beginnings of the Daily Prophet.
Harry Potter created something of a sensation in that children who previously wouldn’t read or write were suddenly doing both. Anime, movies, and many other books have spurred on fan fiction, but nowhere near the quantity that was developed after Harry Potter was published.
For these young writers, fan fiction is a very important thing. Some of them insert themselves into the world to interact with the characters. Some explore giving the characters alternate personalities, or allow characters to explore another book/movie/anime’s world. Some more intrepid writers even attempt to write stories that keep the characters completely true to themselves and to the world. A few even try to imagine alternate endings or what happened after the story ended.
They’re building and exercising their creativity. They’re meeting like-minded people. They’re reading and writing, the hallmarks of literacy.
They’re also learning to be critical, sometimes overly so. They’re learning how to give and receive criticism, even if it’s not handled gracefully on either side. They’re learning to edit, to ask others to help them edit or brainstorm ideas.
It’s an incredible phenomenon, and one that I’m glad to take part in, both as a writer and as an editor who tends to include a lesson or three in her reviews.
Posted by Ceara as Writing Prompts at 7:59 AM EST
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