How True and Factual Does Your Memoir Have to Be? Photo by abhiomkar / Flickr Today’s guest post is adapted from OUR LIFE IS A BOOK: How to Craft and Publish Your Memoir, by Brenda Peterson and Sarah Jane Freymann, published by Sasquatch Press, 2014. Memoir is a most intimate bond and sometimes our characters are not content simply to be created by us. If they are still alive, they can talk back, argue with us, disown us, call us to account, and sometimes congratulate or thank us. Unlike the fiction writer, the memoirist must truly face his or her characters. A memoirist will not exactly mirror everyone else’s perspective, so there is always room for disagreement. You may hear: “No, that’s not the truth.” Much of what we remember is forever lost in the physical world, however much it may shimmer and possess us now. 1.
One clue to “my truth” and “your truth” is how we remember. In a seminal The New Yorker article, “But Enough About Me,” memoirist Daniel Mendelsohn discusses the history of memoir and the challenge of memory. 2. 3. 4. 5. Start Here: How to Write a Book Proposal. This post is a companion to Start Here: How to Get Your Book Published. My expertise on this topic comes from more than a decade of acquisitions experience at a traditional publisher, where I reviewed thousands of proposals.
What exactly is a book proposal? A book proposal argues why your book (idea) is a salable, marketable product. It is essentially a business case or a business plan for your book. Book proposals aren’t something you dash off in a day or two. When is a book proposal needed? Book proposals are used to sell nonfiction book ideas. Instead of writing the entire book—then trying to find a publisher or agent (which is how it works with novels)—you write the proposal first, which convinces the editor or agent to contract you to write the book.
New writers might find it easier to simply write the book first, then prepare a proposal—which isn’t such a bad idea, since many editors and agents want assurance that an unknown writer can produce an entire book before they commit. 1. 2. MASTER LIST of Physical Descriptions! | Bryn Donovan. Sometimes it can be hard to find the right words to describe individual facial features, faces in general, bodies, and even hair. I’m hoping this post will be a good resource for describing the looks of characters in your story. Before I get to the long list, I have a couple of notes and words of advice: When you’re in a character’s POV, their attitude toward another character’s appearance may change over the course of the story as their relationship to that character changes.
A classic case in point: Mr. Darcy goes from saying Elizabeth Bennet is “tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me,” to “one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance.” Don’t rely too much on attractiveness or ugliness to make me as a reader like or dislike a character. Some of these phrases are more expected than others, and whether you care is up to you. Okay, here we go! Eyes – General I’m focusing here on physical descriptions rather than emotional expressions, though there’s a little crossover. large small dry. 100 Sexy Names for Contemporary Romance Heroes! | Bryn Donovan. I have a real interest in character naming, which was why I compiled the master list of historically accurate Regency names a little while ago.
For this list, I got a little help from The New Baby Name Survey Book by Bruce Lansky, which reveals some common preconceptions about names. It is not all that new but still a great reference. I also consulted various online forums where people discuss baby names. I’ve included both popular names, which can be quite sexy, and rarer ones. The names with asterisks by them are common names for men in their 20s and 30s in the United States, according to the Social Security database. If you do pick an unusual first name, you might want to go with a pretty normal surname. Conversely, if you have a common first name, you might want a less usual last name to give your guy some flair. Aaron*Adam* Quintessential solid good-guy name.Aidan Can also be spelled Aiden.Alaric Also spelled Alarik.Alexander He can go by Alex or Xander.Andrew* Andrew is sexy. MASTER LIST of Gestures and Body Language! | Bryn Donovan. Hey there! Lots of writers liked my list of facial expressions, so I thought I would do a companion post about gestures and body language.
Describing these can help readers visualize a scene and get a feel for the characters, and again, they can set up lines of dialogue so you don’t have a string of he said, she said, he asked, she exclaimed, etc., running down the page. You might want to consider which gestures or what body language is typical for each of your characters. For instance, one of my characters in the novel I just finished tends to hug herself when she’s nervous, while another has a habit of rubbing at his shoulder when he’s uncomfortable. They only do it a few times each throughout the book, but I think details like that make characters feel more solid. For a great guide to what body language means, I recommend What Every BODY Is Saying, by former FBI counterintelligence offer Joe Navarro and body language expert Marvin Karlins. she raised her chin he lifted his chin Related.
MASTER LIST of Physical Descriptions! | Bryn Donovan. Make Information Beautiful. 20-Year-Old Hunter S. Thompson’s Superb Advice on How to Find Your Purpose and Live a Meaningful Life. As a hopeless lover of both letters and famous advice, I was delighted to discover a letter 20-year-old Hunter S. Thompson — gonzo journalism godfather, pundit of media politics, dark philosopher — penned to his friend Hume Logan in 1958. Found in Letters of Note: Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience (public library | IndieBound) — the aptly titled, superb collection based on Shaun Usher’s indispensable website of the same name — the letter is an exquisite addition to luminaries’ reflections on the meaning of life, speaking to what it really means to find your purpose.
Cautious that “all advice can only be a product of the man who gives it” — a caveat other literary legends have stressed with varying degrees of irreverence — Thompson begins with a necessary disclaimer about the very notion of advice-giving: To give advice to a man who asks what to do with his life implies something very close to egomania. Every man is the sum total of his reactions to experience. Aimé un Bracelet Toujours sur mon esprit... Pour par MadebyMishka. Some Infinities are Bigger than other Infinities par TheDirection. Porte secrète collier collier personnalisé collier par CaptureMyArt. Pissenlit collier collier de souhait cadeau de par CaptureMyArt.
5 Ways to Earn Passive Income.