The Writing Coach
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Jack Ryan is a political thriller book series (sometimes known as the Ryanverse) written by the late Tom Clancy centered around the titular hero and protagonist, Jack Ryan. Having been adapted into several movies and TV series featuring actors like Harrison Ford and Alec Baldwin, with the latest iteration starring John Krasinski on Prime, it’s…
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One of my favorite literary devices is the foil character. I can’t put my finger on exactly why, but my hunch is that most foils work towards a more satisfying resolution for our protagonist’s arc. What I mean by this is, say, if you have two foils whose stories are closely intertwined, their resolutions will…
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Point of View is a critical literary technique when tackling a fiction novel. It is the usage of narrative voice in a way that clearly defines how much knowledge both the narrator and the reader have. We refer to these as 3rd and 1st person, and within 3rd and 1st, we have subsets of POV…
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My best free advice as a writer to another writer is to read. Read as much as you can. Read the contemporaries, read the classics, read from a local author, read from a bestseller, read from a debut. Read the free stuff on Inkitt and Medium. Read all of it. This is the John Wesley-style…
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In my time of being a writer, a student, and eventually a publishing professional, I’ve come across writers who make sure they describe every single individual cobblestone on a pathway if a character’s simply walking during a scene. Every motion, every minute character expression during a dialogue exchange must be conveyed, no matter how meaningless.…
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I recently received feedback from an editor of a book I was pitching. I won’t go into detail, but let’s just say she really enjoyed it, she was on board with the book and excited about its intangibles and story, but she didn’t fall in love with it. She wasn’t hooked enough. This often happens,…
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We editors are often misunderstood. So, I want to clear the air on some common misconceptions I’ve observed: Misconception #1: Editors kill the story I’ve heard many say that editors gut their client’s writing. Entire paragraphs and pages scrapped, major scenes recommended to be changed, characters amended, morals neutered, vulgarity censored; I get it, I…
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Knowing what style guide you’re using is not just important to your writing, but to your editors, proofreaders and publishers so they know how to work with it. Generally speaking, AP style is used for journalism, Chicago style is for publishing, and APA or MLA are for research and scholastic essays. But, like everything in…
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Exercise more. Your writing will only suffer from a lack of routine and exercise. It’s one thing to hear it from fellow meatheads or the stereotypical athlete or the freaks gifted with genes, but when you hear it from even the people with the white-collar computer desk chairs, you know it’s important to stay healthy,…
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Sometimes I get asked by my partner how I get the idea for a fiction novel. Does it just pop into my head when I wake up? Do I steal the idea from something I’ve watched? Do I just write down my dreams? Do I write what I’ve experienced? The answer really falls in the…
Donovan Levine | Agent, Writer, Copyeditor 