For me, summer officially starts when my kids are out of school. This Friday will mark their last day and I’m so excited to launch some new projects. One of them is a program directed at high school students, which puts the lazy days of summer to good use and will impress college admissions officers. I recently met with a college guidance counselor who gave Read More
A Social Shift in Writing
Clive Thompson wrote in Wired Magazine about how our language has changed due to electronics. He calls it a social shift in writing as smart phones and dictation apps automatically make our writing more casual. Furthermore, voice dictation software is becoming more widely used and also contributes to this casual prose phenomenon. A recent study analyzed how Read More
The Naughty List
Want to get on your readers’ good side? Then take note of two rules to avoid in your writing. It’s what I like to refer to as the naughty list and if a word appears on it, then it has no place in your quality fiction. Avoid “ly” words - adverbs Try to avoid adverbs. Just because they exist doesn’t mean you should use them. These are lazy words that steer Read More
Best Books on Writing
As a literary manager I have to make sure a project is as good as it can be before I send it off to agents and producers. This means that I work one-on-one with the screenwriter or novelist to get it in top-notch condition. The expectation is that they would have done their job first by learning everything they need to know about their craft. But what if Read More