Anne R. Allen's Blog... with Ruth Harris
Writing about writing. Mostly.
October 13, 2024 By Anne R. Allen 12 Comments
Personal Appearance and Reading
If you happen to be on California’s Central Coast next Saturday, October 19th, TV actress Mara Purl and Anne will be doing a presentation and dramatic reading at Volumes of Pleasure Bookshop in Los Osos at 1:00 PM. We’ll read four scenes from our published and upcoming novels.
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July 14, 2024 By Anne R. Allen 86 Comments
Blog Vacation Time! This Blog is Taking a Hiatus.
by Anne R. Allen Yes, Ruth and I are taking a break. I’ve kept this blog going for fifteen years, posting every Sunday morning for most of that time, except the 5 months in 2020 when I was hospitalized. During that tough time, Ruth took the reins and kept the blog going with great […]
July 7, 2024 By Anne R. Allen 18 Comments
Tips on Finding the Right Agent and a Secret Way to Discover Agents You Don’t Know About
Find the right agent with the help of Literary Rambles by Natalie Aguirre Thanks so much for having me here, Anne and Ruth. Finding an agent can be incredibly challenging, and sometimes, it can feel impossible. One thing I’ve learned from my almost 15 years of interviewing debut and traditionally published authors and agents at […]
June 30, 2024 By Anne R. Allen 17 Comments
Rejected? How to Keep it in Perspective
Rejected? Maybe it’s not you. Today we’re celebrating Ruth Harris’s 13th blogiversary. Ruth joined this blog in June of 2011, and I know it wouldn’t have succeeded without her expertise, humor, and warmth. To celebrate, we thought we’d re-run Ruth’s very first post. It’s packed with wisdom that still applies today. How to Keep […]
June 23, 2024 By Anne R. Allen 15 Comments
8 Reasons Your Amazon Ads Aren’t Working
by Penny Sansevieri Amazon ads are a very popular go-to for the majority of authors and we know it’s a big revenue driver for Amazon. But do Amazon ads make money for authors? In some cases, yes, but sadly the majority of authors aren’t using the platform in a way that benefits them. And […]
June 16, 2024 By Anne R. Allen 28 Comments
Mastering Point of View: How to Learn to Avoid Head-Hopping
by Anne R. Allen Whenever I teach a writing workshop, the hardest concept to get across is point of view. Almost every new writer wants to “head-hop”— that is, describe the thoughts of every character in the story — “hopping” from one head to another. This is why head-hopping is considered the mark of […]
June 9, 2024 By Anne R. Allen 29 Comments
Should You Show a WIP to Friends and Family?
by Anne R. Allen What should a new writer do when friends or family members ask to look at your fledgling WIP (work in progress)? We’re usually eager to share our work, and want to hear if we’re on the right track. The problem is, over-exuberant praise can keep us from polishing a draft, […]
June 2, 2024 By Anne R. Allen 23 Comments
How to Stage a Book Event That’s Entertaining and Draws a Crowd
by Anne R. Allen How do you plan an in-person book event that people actually want to attend? That is — people who are not your family, friends, or coerced co-workers? Should you sign books, maybe while offering coffee and cookies? Or should you offer a reading, where you read aloud from your book? […]
May 26, 2024 By Anne R. Allen 17 Comments
Is Fear of Creativity the Root of Bad Writing?
by Ruth Harris Style was once described as “looking like yourself on purpose.” I don’t know who said it but the words and the idea behind them always made sense to me. Certainly Barbra Streisand, Audrey Hepburn and Tilda Swinton are examples. So are Salvador Dali and Andy Warhol. They don’t look like anyone else and are instantly […]
May 19, 2024 By Anne R. Allen 18 Comments
Genre, Comps, Categories, and Labels: Where Does Your Book Belong on a Bookstore Shelf?
by Anne R. Allen Unless you’ve chosen to write in a specific genre from the get-go — and you’ve purposely written Romance, Mystery, Sci-Fi, etc, one of the toughest jobs for a new writer is figuring out how to categorize your book. I spent years querying an uncategorized book, and many of my books […]
May 12, 2024 By Anne R. Allen 13 Comments
What I Wish I’d Known Before Self-Publishing My First Novel
by Jaire Sims I decided to write and publish a Young Adult (YA) story when I was in high school. The process was exciting but had challenges along the way. Once I began writing my debut novel, it took almost ten years to self-publish my story, and the year after publishing, Getting By earned […]
May 5, 2024 By Anne R. Allen 43 Comments
Nobody Expects the Trollbot Inquisition! Are Foreign Bots Censoring U.S. Authors?
Exterminate, exterminate—the Trollbot Inquisition may be coming for you! by Anne R. Allen We hardly ever write personal stuff here on the blog. I avoid politics and religion in my fiction as well as social media, and I figure nobody needs to hear about my little emotional ups and downs. But a couple of weeks […]
April 28, 2024 By Anne R. Allen 18 Comments
Agents: The Good. The Bad. The Downright Disgusting.
by Ruth Harris Your agent is your representative in the publishing world. A good or great one will have wide knowledge of the current trends — are historicals hot? Is alien sci-fi romance coming up? Is medieval adventure staggering along on its last legs? Your agent will know where best to target your work, which […]
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Assignment length requirements are usually given in terms of numbers of words. Unless the lecturer tells you that these limits are strict, it is normally acceptable to be 10% above or below this word limit (so, for example, a 2000 word assignment should be between 1800 and 2200 words).
Stephen King’s 10% Rule. From Stephen King’s On Writing: “In the spring of my senior year at Lisbon High—1966, this would have been—I got a scribbled comment that changed the way I rewrote my fiction once and forever. …
In his book, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” Stephen King introduces an editing strategy he calls “the 10 percent rule.” He simply says, when you finish writing your first draft of your writing, let it sit for a while — that …
As you implement the 10% rule, you’ll become aware of words in your writing that don’t add essential meaning to what you’re trying to say. Here are 3 specific examples to look for: 1. Unnecessary details or digressions. As …
So for me, the rule of thumb would be to add 10%, not cut it out. Another great example is that King decries the use of an outline, and goes so far as to call it dishonest to have an ending in …
Some modules have assignments that state "a maximum of X words" or "write no more than X words" but students still tend to ask if they can have 10% extra. Some seem …
The main rules about the use of numbers in standard academic writing are about: When to write numbers in words. How to avoid confusion with numbers in a sentence. When to use digits for …
I’ve had a few of my assignments allow for 10% above or below the word count, but some project outlines don’t mention this allowance. Is this a uni-wide rule for essays and written work? Would it be safe to assume this applies to all …
The Ten Percent Rule by Alan Skinner After a career that has spanned threecontinents and has included television, theatre, freelance writing, corporate consultancy …