Flogging the Quill Crafting a Novel that Sells

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A one-book remedy for a host of beginner-novelist ailments, a tune-up for published authors, and a resource for editors and their clients.

Rich with advice and coaching from editor/author Ray Rhamey, Flogging the Quill ranges wide but with a single focus: lifting your novel manuscript to a publishable, professional level.

The first section, Storytelling, covers creating tension and the “care factor,” what drives a plot, the six vital story ingredients, and tools for spotting shortcomings in a narrative.

In Description, writers learn how experiential description characterizes, plus how to handle the tricky character-description hurdle, staging, and overwriting.

The Dialogue section helps writers avoid leaden overuse of dialogue tags, enliven dialogue with action beats, and deliver the sound of dialogue.

LOOK INSIDE!

Read endorsements by publishing pros. A sampling:

Editor/publisher Laura Abbott “I’ve read many submissions that were near-misses. If the writers had had the benefit of this book, they’d be published right now.”

Bestseller Tess Gerritsen “It’s a must-have for any novelist.”

The vital “when to tell, how to show” lesson in the Technique section has been praised by literary agents and college teachers. The section also coaches on point of view, including the problems “head-hopping” can cause.

With the Words section, Rhamey reveals unique insights to the good and bad of using adverbs in a fiction narrative, and guides writers in weeding out weak, wasted, and wrong words.

Computer tips make writing more productive, and in an interactive “workout” section writers apply lessons learned to real efforts by beginning novelists and compare it with the author’s take.

This all-in-one volume draws on the deep understanding of an editor and writer who brings to the task experience in advertising, screenwriting, editing novels, and writing them. Rhamey is the author of the internationally known “litblog,” Flogging the Quill.