I review submissions for one of the publishers I work for. Unfortunately, I see the same beginner mistakes over and over. Every time I do, I want to email that author and tell him or her to please format submissions correctly! I do have selfish reasons—it’s much easier to read a submission that’s correctly done, but I also want to see these authors succeed. So, because I can’t email all those authors personally, I decided to do this blog.

Some submissions are better than others. Some make me want to cry. Others make me want to tear out what little hair I have left. I started proofreading a manuscript recently for my boss. When I opened the Word file, the first thing I noticed was the font, which was not Times New Roman. No problem, I thought. Easy-peasy. I figured I’d just change the font before printing out the manuscript since I prefer to read in Times New Roman. Changing font on a document is an easy “select all” change.

Nooooo! It’s June! The year is half over! WE HAVE SO MUCH TO WRITE BEFORE CHRISTMAS SHOPPING!!! But help is here. There is sanity to be found in the linear clarity of an Excel spreadsheet to help you establish and meet your writing goals.

Caveat: If you have a production system that works for you, stick with it. Learning new processes is great but not if it interferes with a process that ain’t broke. Also, if you don’t want/need to produce more, well...What are you doing here?! Go enjoy your freedom!

Congratulations to all Savvy Authors!

Our first congratulations this week goes out to Savvy Authors member Lisa Kessler. Her novel Night Walker is a Book Seller's Best double finalist for Best Paranormal and Best First Book, and Night Walker is also a finalist in the San Diego Book Awards! Congratulations, Lisa!

Pamela Turner's poem, Ophelia Lies Dreaming, was published June 2012 in Indigo Rising UK (Issue 2). Her short story, Family Heirloom, was published in the digital anthology Scared – Ten Tales of Horror (June 2012). She also received a contract from MuseItUp Publishing for her short horror/suspense story, Family Tradition. Congratulations, Pamela!

In part I, we talked about the pieces of an effective hook: the setup, the climb, and the punch. Now we’re going to talk about the most important piece.

The Pay-Off

Not every book has to be hook-laden. Other things can compel the reader forward—humor, powerful emotions, characters we love so much we don’t care what they’re doing, really, as long as we get to stay with them for a while. But if you’re going to use punching hooks, you have to think about pay-off.

I’ve been working so hard to plant and encourage my garden this year—while finishing a novella and starting a new Regency, plus editing and formatting my next indie book—that I could scarcely escape the close analogy between growing a garden and writing a book. And when searching for a blog title, the old nursery rhyme popped into my mind.

As a writer I need to know where my characters are, how they interact with the surroundings, what it means to them. As a reader I want to be able to jump right in with them and experience what they experience, whether it be Vatican or ranch, desert isle or Tokyo.

We’re told not to put in long descriptions. Readers are impatient. They tell us they skip over long paragraphs of description, so how do we do it? How do you let your reader know where the heck they are? And how they got where they are on the opening page?

Before diving in, it is important to remember that every story is different. Some will need a little more information, and others can get the point across in three words or less. Well…maybe a few more than three words, but you get my drift.

First of all, what is a hook line?

A hook line is exactly what it sounds like – a line that will hook someone into wanting to read your book. It is basically the same thing as a log line, which is a one line summary of a screenplay or script. Since we are creating these for a novel instead of a script, we’ll call them hook lines. They can run two or three lines, but no more than that.

In my last blog for Savvy Authors, in September 2011, I talked about Irrevocability. Today I'm going to talk about mixing things up. Doing the unexpected.

Sadly (for your characters) this often means making things go bad. I mean, really bad. As in, the worst thing that could happen, happens. But not always. Mostly, what matters is that things go differently than expected.

Most romance novels end with the hero and heroine living happily ever after. But what happens when God needs to be a part of the loving couple’s happy ending, too?

Writing an inspirational romance has many of the same elements as a non-inspirational romance. The focus of the story is the hero and heroine and their romantic journey. Even if you’re writing an inspirational romantic suspense, the plot must not overshadow the romance.