Writing, Pbulishing, and scams linkspree disguised as research.

[minervasolo]

Idea for series of articles for WSAAC:

Plotting
- different methods
- genre tropes, cliches, etc (Some sf advice from McIntyre, and a whole collection of evil overloads lists, and If you can do the following to your book, and it stil works, worry)
(- writing about sex?)
- case study: snowflake method

(Mary Sue Essay? but the origfic version + practices and terms from fanfic that's actually made editors lives easier)

Proof reading
- Multiple drafts
- Beta Readers (e.g. Critters for SF, F, and H)
- (sort of) case study: spelling and grammar (and punctuation) Guide

Plagiarism
- Not just for essays!
- Case study: Lanaia Lee (and more here, including the Wicca 'tenfold' curse)
(also how to actually sound like a lawyer, and why accusing Rowling of it didn't work out so well)
- Leading to...

Agents
- Useful lists of good and bad (e.g. Gaiman's and those he links to, especialy Agent Research nd possibly Agent Query)
- Case studies: lady_jaida and mistful for good (with permission, inc How maya found an agent)
- Case study: Christopher Hill for bad (in the guardian too, and a personal account)

Types of Publishing
- Small Press
- Vanity (I have so many links, they're not worth listing, but Making Light is a good place to go for horror stories about vanity publishing and related scams)
- The Big Ones
- Competitions
- what to look for before submitting (Writer's beware? Making light on Linguistic markers, and Why you shouldnt automatically trust books about publishing)
- where to find somewhere to submit (ralan, duotrope and The White List)
- Rejection Letters
- How to go about submitting (Covering letters are hard to write)

And some general links:
Victoria Strauss's Articles
Scrivener's Error (sort of publishing as a business)
Internet resources for writers
A poetry competition you cannot lose

Essentially, prepare to give up half your day to the Making Light links from the Gaiman entry; so many vanity presses, literary scams, bad agents, and people unqualified to offer advice. You'll notice there's a lot of links to the blog in this entry, because I found it hard to stop.

Have another.



Just playing with ideas. Any suggestions for further links and resources are welcome. I've lost my manuscript format links, if anyone happens to have any good ones.

Reading the comments here has left me with a terrible desire to send tea bags with my covering letter for Greenhelm, whenever it's in a state to have a covering letter. It's not chocolate, but it is memorable, and Ilike to think it's the kind of story that'd go well with a nice cup of tea and a comfy chair. Also, I feel sorry for the people who have to plow through all those manuscripts.

Comments

[rhube.livejournal.com]

Go for it - those are some really interesting links there - and I think there's a lot of truth in that one about sex. Thanks for highlighting these!

[catalyst0.livejournal.com]

This is a really interesting post. Thanks for gathering all these links together! I've been contemplating trying to do something with my writing in the "real" world, now that I have oodles of (semi-finished, sigh) fanfic that I've been able to practice on, ;) so... this feels like an banquet of highly apropos thought-food.

[catalyst0.livejournal.com]

Er. A banquet, pardon typos. :P

[eeveeichooseyou.livejournal.com]

It'd be great to have articles about practical stuff like that! The only thing Word Salad's got at the moment about getting published in (as Jess put it) real places is the competitions summary, which isn't adviceful at all!

[rhube.livejournal.com]

We've had a couple of articles with advice in the past - but it'd be great to have more!