Brianna Storm Hilvety

@cassie-hartfinh

I haven’t worked much with book proposals myself, but I found a good article by Jerry B. Jenkins on the subject (which does mention formatting): https://jerryjenkins.com/how-to-write-a-book-proposal/

And if you’d like a visual example, here is a proposal Jill Williamson created for one of her books: http://jillwilliamson.com/wp-c…[Read more]

@taylorclogston

I’m going to invade Jess’s guild for a minute because I’m very sorry to hear that you’ve had a bad experience with editors. From what you’ve said, it sounds like whoever you worked with wasn’t qualified, which I’m afraid is the case with many alleged “professional” editors. A line editor should do much more for your prose than c…[Read more]

The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglisi might be helpful to you. It doesn’t cover tone, but it gives suggestions for how to effectively convey emotions through a character’s body language. I’m wondering if the problem is that you’re not infusing enough emotions into the scene and that’s why it feels sterile. These posts from…[Read more]

I love how I knew where Josiah hid the clue and am leading the writing team on this quest. 😂👍🏻👍🏻 (That’s actually a fairly accurate representation of how I interact with our publishing personnel…which is probably information I should not be disclosing to the public. 😛 So shhhh.)

@briannajean I noticed that we share the same first name (and spelling!), so I had to pop in to say hello! 😉 I’m glad your friend steered you our way, and I hope that you find our content to be edifying.

Sounds like you lead a busy life and have several fun projects in the works! I’m a homeschool grad, and many others around here come from tha…[Read more]

@bekah @evelyn @taylorclogston Christian Manuscript Submissions is a legitimate business, so it’s not a scam, but also probably not worthwhile except as a last resort if you haven’t been able to get an agent/publisher on your own. This post gives some helpful advice about manuscript submission ser…[Read more]

@inkling-for-christ

Here’s a post from Writer’s Digest that answers this question rather straightforwardly: http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/long-novel-chapters

And here’s an article that covers the issue in more depth: https://wordcounter.net/blog/2017/02/15/102944_how-many-words-chapter.html

Basically, you want to let your content…[Read more]

@nuetrobolt Hope nailed it, but I will add that the more revisions you perform, the better your chances of success (either at getting traditionally published or gaining an audience of readers who respect, value, and enjoy your books). Writing multiple drafts, recruiting beta readers, and then hiring a professional editor to help you with your…[Read more]

@ellen-blanc @scribbles *Peeks out of my hermitage* Did I hear someone mention introversion, purple, and sarcasm? Do I have a clone? 😉

Welcome to Story Embers, Ellen! I love the poem you shared! 💜 You’re the only person here who has introduced herself with a poem, so kudos for being creative. 👍🏻

Since no one has asked you the pivotal question ye…[Read more]

@wordsmith The definition of proficient is “well advanced in an art, occupation, or branch of knowledge.” This doesn’t mean a writer is perfect or that they have no more room to grow, but that they have a solid grasp on fundamental writing principles and techniques, as well as a fair amount of experience (by getting published at various places…[Read more]

@scarletimmortalized Welcome to Story Embers!

If you hang around here very long, someone will start talking about MBTI, so I’ll go ahead and ask you the pivotal question: what is your personality type? I’m an INFJ who frequently tests as an INTJ, but that can’t be accurate because I’m too emotional. 😜 So I like to tell people I can switch between…[Read more]

@karthmin Thank you for the clarification. 🙂 And no worries—I’m a night owl myself, so I’ve written some things in the wee hours of the morning that I’ve had to disentangle the next day because my point got misplaced. 😉

@hope-ann I would classify proofreading as a technical skill since it only involves correcting errors, but other levels of editing are not. No two editors will revise a book exactly the same way. They may flag several of the same issues, but they may not suggest the same solutions. Editing is a creative endeavor, and editors have unique areas of…[Read more]