DECONSTRUCT GENRE NOVELS TO UNCOVER THE NECESSARY ELEMENTS

Feel like you are lacking the secret password to whisper to the doorkeeper at publishing houses? Maybe it’s a secret handshake instead that is exchanged between editors and authors when they meet, or virtually between readers and authors on social media sites that lands a book sale?

There has to be something that is keeping your manuscript from getting published, right?

Could be that it is missing certain elements that readers (both editors, agents and the purchasing public) look for in specific genres or genre niches. If your manuscript is missing or running shy on some of these, that could very well be what is holding you back from achieving a sale.

At conference sessions and interviews with bloggers editors are notorious for telling writers that they are “looking for something different” when that isn’t really what they mean at all. They are looking for tweaks to the tried and true elements in the genre lines their publishing house goes to contract on and releases.

Readers who feed on the output from the Indie (Independently published) presses are looking for specific things, too. If your storyline doesn’t supply those longed for and expected elements, these readers won’t be back to pick up your next title when it comes available.

So how does a writer sort out what these elements are? They aren’t usually things mentioned in guidelines. There is only one way to glean what they are, and that is by reading your competition.

The most recent output from your competition.

Things covered are settings, character types, plot elements, language, and much more.

DECONSTRUCTING GENRE NOVELS TO UNCOVER THE NECESSARY ELEMENTS is the 2nd volume in a series of Writing Workshops in Book Form. Based on workshops presented online by Beth Daniels for various writers groups, they cover elements of benefit to both new novelists and those with a few published titles on the shelves, be those shelves physical or virtual