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Please give a warm welcome to Miranda Kenneally, the author of Catching Jordan and Stealing Parker! She’s here today as part of her Home Run Blog Tour! In celebration of NaNoWriMo, she’s sharing her top ten tips for new writers. There’s also a copy of Stealing Parker up for grabs so be sure to enter the giveaway below!.
Red-hot author Miranda Kenneally hits one out of the park in this return to Catching Jordan’s Hundred Oaks High.
Parker Shelton pretty much has the perfect life. She’s on her way to becoming valedictorian at Hundred Oaks High, she’s made the all-star softball team, and she has plenty of friends. Then her mother’s scandal rocks their small town and suddenly no one will talk to her.
Now Parker wants a new life.
So she quits softball. Drops twenty pounds. And she figures why kiss one guy when she can kiss three? Or four. Why limit herself to high school boys when the majorly cute new baseball coach seems especially flirty?
But how far is too far before she loses herself completely?
Top Ten Tips for New Writers
by Miranda Kenneally
1. Do not give up. With the first book I ever wrote, I sent out over 100 queries and only received 4 requests from agents. With my second book, I sent out 17 queries, got 9 requests from agents, and 4 offers of representation.
2. Don’t use fancy words. Use words you hear in everyday life.
3. Read tons of books in the genre you want to write in.
4. Make sure your prose has a rhythm. Read your work out loud before showing it to anybody.
5. Find lots of beta readers who read in your genre. It’s important to have a well-balanced book, and to get that, you need lots of opinions.
6. Listen to all feedback – negative and positive. Without constructive criticism, I’d be nowhere. I can’t grow as a writer (or as a person, for that matter) if I don’t know where I’m missing the mark.
7. Trust your first instinct. My 7th grade science teacher once told me, “Miranda, a human being’s first instinct is correct 90% of the time. If you’re going to deviate from your first instinct, you’d better have a good reason why you should.” When I send out a first draft (or portions of a first draft) to beta readers, I’m always open-minded when comments start coming back to me, but before I consider implementing any suggested changes – I have to remind myself to think about why I wrote what I did in the first place. It’s very normal to feel silly or dumb after hearing comments, and immediately feel like you need to rush to do exactly what that person says — But you’ve also got to remember that you’re smart, too, and you wrote what you did for a reason.
8. Make sure your characters aren’t black and white. Let them make mistakes. Nobody wants to read about perfect characters.
9. Your truth isn’t everybody else’s truth. When building a world, it’s important to make sure that you adequately frame a person’s situation and beliefs. I mean, how could people be so evil as to make a little boy live in a cupboard under the stairs? Readers “buy” it because Mr. Dursley’s been painted as a man who abhors anything unordinary.
10. DO NOT QUERY on December 1 at the end of NaNoWriMo. Let your book sit for a few weeks before trying to get an agent. You might need to revise before anyone else reads it. Sometimes I can write a first draft in less than a month, but then I’ll spend 7-8 months editing it!
About the author: Miranda Kenneally is the author of CATCHING JORDAN, STEALING PARKER, and THINGS I CAN’T FORGET (March 2013). Miranda is the co-creator of Dear Teen Me. The Dear Teen Me Anthology was published on October 31, 2012. She enjoys reading and writing young adult literature, and loves Star Trek, music, sports, Mexican food, Twitter, coffee, and her husband.
I love this list, so helpful to a newbie writer like myself. Many thanks to Miranda for stopping by today!
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LOVE THIS! I am madly in love with Miranda Kenneally and her advice is spot on. I especially love the “Do not use fancy words” part. Sometimes a thesaurus is awesome, but there are times when a reader will KNOW you’re using one.
I plan to work on the book I started LAST NaNo (but never finished) as well as the one I’m doing for this NaNo a few weeks after the craziness ends. It’ll be nice to revisit both of them and actually go into the revising and editing process!
Thanks for sharing this!!
Kristilyn (Reading in Winter) recently posted..DISCUSSION: How to Live With a Non-Reader
I love Miranda’s advice. Especially about letting her characters mistakes. Thanks for sharing!
So many helpful tips. Thanks. And good timing. I’m taking Creative Writing at my school. This will help a lot. 🙂
TayteH recently posted..Celebrate Books: Why I Love YA Books
Great advice! I’m currently in the throws of NaNoWriMo. Even though I’m not contemplating publishing, I can adapt a lot of this advice to just writing my NaNo novel!
Meg @ A Bookish Affair recently posted..Review and G!ve@way: Phantom by Laura DeLuca
Thanks for all the helpful writing tips. I especially enjoyed the “Trust your instinct” one as I am not very confident. I’ll try to keep that tip in mind
Twitter: Haveitcani
says:
Really good advice! She’s such a great writer, I love her books!!
Twitter: jeneaw0716
says:
Great post… I would really like to read this series. Thanks for sharing this..
Jenea @ Books Live Forever
Jenea W recently posted..It’s Finally Friday #25
I like the first tip. Definitely do not give up. I always like to try and try again 🙂
I think that every single one of those tips is right, especially 2. Sure, you might use grander words if you’re world-building in an epic fantasy novel, but your characters need to sound like real people. Your readers need to connect with them, which brings us to tip #8. Great advice 🙂
7. Trust your first instinct. My 7th grade science teacher once told me, “Miranda, a human being’s first instinct is correct 90% of the time. If you’re going to deviate from your first instinct, you’d better have a good reason why you should.” When I send out a first draft (or portions of a first draft) to beta readers, I’m always open-minded when comments start coming back to me, but before I consider implementing any suggested changes – I have to remind myself to think about why I wrote what I did in the first place. It’s very normal to feel silly or dumb after hearing comments, and immediately feel like you need to rush to do exactly what that person says — But you’ve also got to remember that you’re smart, too, and you wrote what you did for a reason.
Something I am still trying to do as I always try to talk myself out of my first instinct!! Thanks for the reminder!!
Twitter: fakesteph
says:
Haha, number 10, yep!
fakesteph recently posted..Blog Tour: Samantha Sutton and the Labyrinth of Lies by Jordan Jacobs
Twitter: JolainneD
says:
That is really fantastic advice which I honestly feel a lot of writers still don’t use. I have read so many books where the characters are so one-dimensional they bore me to tears. Also, making your readers understand a character rather than just read about it is something that I feel is really very important.
So thank you for hosting this giveaway. I have reaaaaalllllly been looking forward to reading Stealing Parker!
[…] Jen from A Book and a Latte featured author Jenny Coon Peterson on her blog this week for her How I Write series. I found this very inspirational! She also interviewed Katie McGarry (author of Pushing the Limits) for the series! AND, Miranda Kenneally (author of Catching Jordan and Stealing Parker) was on her blog with her Top Ten Tips for New Writers. […]