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The Steve Laube Agency

Helping to Change the World…Word by Word

The Steve Laube Agency

The Steve Laube Agency

Helping to Change the World Word by Word

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Home » Writing Craft » Page 17

Writing Craft

What’s the Problem?

By Tamela Hancock Murrayon October 27, 2021
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My office receives many submissions with the hypothesis that a protagonist thinks s/he’s living the perfect life until it falls apart. This is a great premise!

What is a perfect life? Most of us have an idea of what the world thinks of as an ideal life and what seems to be the “perfect” life we can live as Christians. Therefore, the reader doesn’t need to spend much time living the protagonist’s perfect life before being presented with the problem the story seeks to address. 

Allow me to submit a beginning I wrote to a book I doubt I’ll finish:

Capri smiled into the mirror, admiring her veneers. Whitening toothpaste and her electric toothbrush helped her maintain a flawless appearance for her popular – and profitable – podcasts.

She’d just finished lining her lips in fuschia with her Yves St. Laurent Dessin Des Levres pencil when her daughter, Haisley, interrupted. 

“I’ve got news.”

“Let me guess. Your first college acceptance came in.”

Haisley shook her head. “No. I’m not going to college.”

“What?” 

“Mom!” Dior hollered from the foyer. “It’s for you!”

Capri hadn’t even heard the doorbell ring. She lifted her index finger toward Haisley. “Hold that thought.”

Careful to stay in the previously drawn lines, Capri colored her lips with a stick of Tom Ford’s Pretty Persuasive. Then, rushing through the owner’s suite, she noticed a folded paper with her name on it in her husband’s script on the bed. The letter would have to wait too.

“Who could be calling this early?” She navigated down one of the two curved staircases to greet her unwanted visitor.

A man in a business suit awaited. “Capri Nowland?”

“Yes.”

He handed her a manilla envelope. “You have been served.”

In 185 words, the reader has a sense of Capri’s life and has learned about three problems. We know where the book is headed. Either the reader is hooked or not hooked. It’s all about the reader.

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Category: Craft, Get Published, Writing Craft

21st-Century Writing

By Bob Hostetleron October 13, 2021
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I’ve been writing and publishing for a long time. Just look at me: a lonnnnng time. During those many years of experience, I’ve learned a thing or two. Maybe three. And among the things I’ve learned about writing for publication is that writers in the twenty-first century must do things differently than writers in previous centuries. Sure, generally speaking, the rules of fiction and nonfiction …

Read more21st-Century Writing
Category: Grammar, Language, The Publishing Life, The Writing Life, Trends, Writing Craft

Always Be Curious (The ABCs of the Writing Life)

By Steve Laubeon October 4, 2021
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by Steve Laube

Depending on where you live and your school district policies you may already be in a back-to-school mode or preparing for it.

It got me to thinking about the need for all writers to always have a "back to school" mentality.

Here are five things we can learn from always going "back to school."

Read moreAlways Be Curious (The ABCs of the Writing Life)
Category: Book Business, Steve, Writing CraftTag: Book Business, Creativity, Writing Craft

Books, Hooks, and Good Looks

By Bob Hostetleron September 30, 2021
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I love hooks. As a writer, I work hard on my hooks. When I was a magazine editor, the hook was often the best way for a writer to make a good first impression on me. And now, for me as a literary agent, the hook is the first and one of the most important criteria I use in evaluating a book pitch, proposal, or manuscript. A good book hook will often prompt me to give a project a more careful, …

Read moreBooks, Hooks, and Good Looks
Category: Book Business, Book Proposals, Career, Get Published, Pitch, Pitching, Platform, Self-Publishing, Social Media, The Writing Life

God Gave Me This Blog Post

By Steve Laubeon September 27, 2021
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God gave me this blog post. By invoking divine inspiration, I have guaranteed that you will read this post and possibly give me money to read more. Sound like a stretch? Then what if I just wrote or said: “God spoke to me.”“I was led to write this.”“God revealed this to me.”“I have been called to write this.”“I believe this is an inspired post.” In the Christian publishing industry, editors, …

Read moreGod Gave Me This Blog Post
Category: Book Business, TheologyTag: Pitching, Theology

Fun Fridays – September 24, 2021

By Steve Laubeon September 24, 2021
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Today is National Punctuation Day! In celebration, take out a comma.

Or at least visit the official site: www.nationalpunctuationday.com.

Recently I walked into a church classroom to find a list of the 10 Commandments on the board. The first line read "No other God's."
Sigh.

If you want to read a fun book on grammar and punctuation I can recommend Mignon Fogarty's Grammar Girl's Quick …

Read moreFun Fridays – September 24, 2021
Category: Grammar, Language, SteveTag: Grammar, Language, punctuation

When Editorial Errors Matter

By Steve Laubeon September 20, 2021
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by Steve Laube

Writers make mistakes. It happens. Often an editor’s job is to be the safety net and catch those tidbits that find their way into an early draft of a manuscript for any number of reasons.

The simplicity of “cut & paste” has created more opportunity for error than ever before. I've seen half sentences left in their original place because the writer failed to cut and …

Read moreWhen Editorial Errors Matter
Category: Book Business, Craft, E-Books, Editing, Grammar, Steve, Writing CraftTag: Editing, Errors, Writing Craft

A Simple Writing Trick When Spinning Your Wheels

By Bob Hostetleron September 9, 2021
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So you’re cruising along in your work-in-progress (WIP). The muse is singing. Ideas are popping. Words are flowing. Until … Suddenly you hit a bump. Or maybe a roadblock. Or a cement abutment. You try to persevere; but the muse has gone silent, inspiration has ceased, and you just don’t know where to go next. The technical term for this experience is SYW (“spinning your wheels”). It happens to all …

Read moreA Simple Writing Trick When Spinning Your Wheels
Category: Craft, The Writing Life, Writing Craft

Singing the Slushpile Blues

By Steve Laubeon August 30, 2021
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by Steve Laube

The unsolicited pile of proposals in my office (aka "the slushpile) taunts me every day.

"Come over here!" it says, tantalizing me with immanent possibilities. I say to myself, "Maybe it will be the next one I look at. That will be 'The One.'"

I've been told that many of you enjoy hearing some of the offbeat letters or intriguing proposals I see. Here is a sampling from …

Read moreSinging the Slushpile Blues
Category: Book Proposals, Creativity, HumorTag: Humor, slushpile

Books Are Signposts Along the Way

By Steve Laubeon August 16, 2021
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By Steve Laube

The novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, is a series of stories linked together in the small town of Macondo in South America. It is surrounded by a swamp and thus is known for its isolation.

One day the town was infected by a plague which causes insomnia. The people of the town were not unhappy at first …

Read moreBooks Are Signposts Along the Way
Category: Art, Craft, Creativity, Writing CraftTag: Craft, Creativity, Signs
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