April Davila - Author
I recently had the pleasure of hearing the author Percival Everett talk about his work. The man has written 30 novels over the course of his career and he's still going strong. Anyway, one of the audience members asked him if he outlines. He … [Continue reading] about An Atlas, Not An Outline
A few weeks back I published a post about sending out a successful query, with a few thoughts on what I thought I did right. One of the main things on that list was spending time on my query letter synopsis to make it as good as it could be. Since … [Continue reading] about Writing the Query Letter Synopsis
A while back I wrote a post about something I heard an agent say at a conference. She said that our task, as writers, is to make her want to take the book to bed with her. I loved that. Because don't we all read in bed? And isn't falling into a good … [Continue reading] about Not Just Done, But Done Right
The Waiting Place... ...for people just waiting. Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or the waiting around for a Yes or No or … [Continue reading] about The Waiting Place
Not long ago I heard a piece of writing advice that went something like this: tell your friends the main idea of your story and ask them how they think it will end. Go there. Write the expected ending. The Ending Everyone Expects She had me up … [Continue reading] about Write The Ending That Everyone Expects
About nine years ago, while I was still working on my masters degree in writing at USC, I took a class called The Business of Writing. On one of the final days of the class an agent came to listen to our elevator pitches and gave us each a bit of … [Continue reading] about Reflections on a Successful Query
I struggle with backstory. I'm never sure how deep to go into my characters. I've heard people say that you need to know everything about them, and there's a certain logic to that, but EVERYTHING? Do I really need to know what kind of ice cream my … [Continue reading] about Ask Why 5 Times