tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28551604058367707632024-02-20T01:34:02.546-08:00Sione Aeschliman, LLCWrite. Read. Learn. Dream.Sionehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10062511291942334329noreply@blogger.comBlogger311125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2855160405836770763.post-67460553066582246402019-06-17T10:53:00.000-07:002019-06-17T10:53:59.477-07:00Summer 2019 Intern: Sam PrattI am thrilled to announce that my intern this summer is Sam Pratt, who will be a senior this fall at my undergrad alma mater, Lewis & Clark College. Sam and I bonded immediately over our mutual love of speculative fiction and passion for diversity in literature - not to mention the fact that she describes freelance editing as her "dream job" - and I couldn't be happier to have her on board Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2855160405836770763.post-15805340565797686512018-10-11T09:53:00.000-07:002018-10-16T12:47:16.591-07:00Your novel's primary conflictWhen I sit down to write an edit letter for a client, the first thing I ask myself is: What is this book's primary conflict?
Simply put, a book's primary conflict (also sometimes called the central conflict) is the problem or question that's raised toward the beginning of the book and resolved at the Resolution.
Examples:
Incognolio by Michael Sussman. Problem: The nonsense word incognolio is Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2855160405836770763.post-86731747403611378482018-06-01T06:00:00.000-07:002018-07-08T10:30:06.133-07:00Interview with author Sarah WhelanIt is my great pleasure to host an interview on the blog today with author Sarah Whelan, with whom I had the privilege of working on her debut novel, The Struggle Within, an adult contemporary novel about a prison counselor who finds herself the unwitting instigator of a prison riot. Her book is currently available in paperback and ebook formats on Lulu and Amazon.
Congratulations on Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2855160405836770763.post-43715629551336715782018-04-04T06:00:00.000-07:002018-04-04T06:00:07.977-07:00Are you prepared for RevPit 2018?
Whether
you're just hearing about the Revise & Resub (#RevPit) Contest for the first time in 2018 or joined us last year, this post is meant to help you decide whether you'll be ready
to submit on April 21st and, if so, what you should do to prepare.
But before I launch into it, it's worth mentioning this: You
don't need to be a contestant in order to benefit from the amazingly
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2855160405836770763.post-41007424710194639032018-04-03T21:16:00.001-07:002018-04-03T21:16:43.827-07:00Interview on Write Through the Roof
Last week I had the great pleasure of being interviewed by Madeleine D'Este on her podcast, Write Through the Roof, wherein we talked about writing, editing, and RevPit (among other things). To find out about "the beverage triangle," my advice for processing both praise and criticism of one's writing, and a strategy for reading for craft, head on over to Madeleine's site and give this episode Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2855160405836770763.post-89037130025556235272018-03-12T00:31:00.001-07:002018-03-12T10:20:52.654-07:00RevPit 2018!
I'm thrilled to be a participating editor again in this year's Revise & Resub (#RevPit) Contest!
For those who are unfamiliar with this contest, it's a chance for authors who are querying or getting ready to query their novels to win 5 weeks of editing with a professional editor. There is no submission fee, and all the editors volunteer their time and expertise. The feedback we got last Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2855160405836770763.post-9930316799349423402018-01-19T10:35:00.003-08:002018-04-03T21:02:42.794-07:00Podcast episode on self-publishingI'm featured in a podcast! MUCH EXCITE!
Last month I recorded a (very long) podcast episode about self-publishing with r. r. campbell, creator of the Writescast podcast. (His debut novel, Accounting for it All is coming out later this year, btw, and I cannot wait!) In this episode I downloaded pretty much everything I've learned about self-publishing over the last 5 years, from distribution Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2855160405836770763.post-55282973311958337492017-10-26T12:22:00.000-07:002017-10-26T12:22:53.424-07:00Writing vs storytellingIt should not have come as a surprise. After all, it had been ages since I'd had a similar epiphany about academic writing. Because my high school teachers and undergrad professors had almost only ever marked errors in style and mechanics (word choice, the use of "I", spelling, punctuation, grammar, etc.), I'd gotten the mistaken impression that a good paper was an error-free paper written in an Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2855160405836770763.post-31338682274146599922017-10-12T11:24:00.000-07:002017-10-12T11:24:09.952-07:00More clients' books published!Two books I've worked on have been published in the last couple of months, and I'm feeling like a very lucky editor.
In August Michael Sussman published Incognolio, the surrealist novel we worked on together.
Bewildered but lovable author, Muldoon, is trapped in the dreamlike
narrative of his own surrealistic novel. Beginning with just a
title—Incognolio—he enters a bizarre fictional realm Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2855160405836770763.post-31573995015617641782017-08-15T19:29:00.001-07:002017-08-15T19:32:06.151-07:00Guest post: Writing From Your Subconscious Mind by Michael SussmanA little over a year ago, I read a partial manuscript that burrowed deep into my brain and set my mind on fire. For days I thought and dreamed about it, and every time I told someone about the book, this fire re-ignited, fueling my speech and gestures and turning me into a version of myself that my closest friends and relatives hardly recognized - I was that excited. This book resonated deeply Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2855160405836770763.post-32262736287365459162017-04-23T00:00:00.000-07:002017-04-23T00:00:15.417-07:00Interview with D Gilman WakeliHappy book birthday to How to NOT Write a Book, a nonfiction book about the myriad ways we create obstacles between our creative imaginations and the page! I'm thrilled to welcome the author, D Gilman Wakeli, back to the blog today for an interview about the book and her writing process.
Congratulations on publishing your first book! Tell us about that intriguing title: Why a book about *not*Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2855160405836770763.post-71022791618248271102017-04-19T10:08:00.001-07:002017-04-21T09:29:15.756-07:00Guest post: On Worms and Butterflies by D Gilman WakeliToday I'm ecstatic to welcome my friend and fellow author D Gilman Wakeli to the blog to talk about one of the barriers to creative work that she explores in her first book, the forthcoming How to NOT Write a Book, in which she explores the deep-seated reasons we don't begin - and don't finish - writing.
On Worms and Butterflies
by D Gilman Wakeli
Why do we refuse to finish our work? WhyUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2855160405836770763.post-81533929400652029282017-01-16T14:39:00.000-08:002017-01-16T14:39:05.519-08:00Lessons in VulnerabilityIn preparing for a reading I'm giving next weekend, I came across a piece I wrote in 2012 for a creative nonfiction class. It's probably the most honest thing I've ever written, and therefore the most frightening thing I've ever written. I'm choosing to share it here because I think some of you will be able to relate.
Lessons in Vulnerability
I’ve been looking forward to this class for months.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2855160405836770763.post-34999360221021803382016-09-30T06:00:00.000-07:002016-09-30T11:17:40.642-07:00The Work Conference 2017On Oct. 1, the submission window opens for The Work Conference, a boutique writers' conference in New York City that's suited to hardworking, unagented authors of YA or adult literary or upmarket fiction who are serious about publishing traditionally. I had the extreme good fortune to attend the inaugural, 2016 conference as a faculty member, and although I won't be there in 2017, I highly Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2855160405836770763.post-57093094590619584452016-09-12T17:10:00.002-07:002016-10-13T14:28:44.136-07:00Preparing for October #P2P16Pitch to Publication October 2016 has been announced! *mad squealing and running around with arms in the air* =*D I had so much fun last time and could not be more thrilled to participate in this Twitter contest again. *more squealing*
Whether you're just hearing about this contest for the first time or have done it before, this post is meant to help you decide whether you'll be ready to Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2855160405836770763.post-12754178136038063332016-09-08T16:49:00.000-07:002017-03-28T10:30:06.695-07:00Your first 50 pages
Having looked at a lot of authors' pages back in March (and having had the incredibly good fortune of getting to work with several of those people since then), I began to notice some patterns in what grabs me and where manuscripts fall down. So far I've talked about the first 5 pages, the Darkest Moment, the word count, chapters (length, breaks, headings, etc.), and the novel's overall Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2855160405836770763.post-60741371020887569342016-09-07T16:01:00.000-07:002017-03-28T10:33:18.293-07:00Your novel's structureMy current thinking about structure - which I use both for my own novels and for working with clients' books - is influenced primarily by the three-act structure as explained to me by my friend Diane Gilman, who wrote screenplays for many years, and by Viki King's description of the nine plot points in her book How to Write a Movie in 21 Days. Influenced being the operative word; what I offer Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2855160405836770763.post-54252994329104625392016-08-15T12:31:00.001-07:002017-03-28T10:32:37.674-07:00Your novel's chaptersA combination of Twitter conversations, client work, and working on my own latest novel have put it in my head today to talk about approaches to chapters: length, breaks, and titles.
First let me say that there are no hard-and-fast rules in storytelling. As with any aspect of craft, choices about how to do chapters are driven by the experience we want our readers to have. It's about the effects Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2855160405836770763.post-16546059442541304412016-07-06T21:40:00.000-07:002016-07-06T21:42:52.233-07:00Your Pitch to Publication query letterQuery letters are tricky beasts, difficult for most authors to write. Going in, we know this. But your query letter is important because it's what's going to get me excited about reading your first five pages and, more importantly, give me a sense of what I'm not seeing: namely, p. 6 to the end. It's going to clue me into whether you know what your book is about, whether the narrative arc makes Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2855160405836770763.post-86415439761803435772016-06-21T23:32:00.000-07:002017-03-28T10:26:25.893-07:00Your novel's word countToday I'd like to talk about a four-letter word: word count. (Okay, I know that's not literally a four-letter word. I'm being metaphorical.)
"I just hate how I 'come off as' as a debut writer with a super high WC,
even when I'm doing a genre that has higher WC. I don't like agents to
think of me as ignorant or judge my story because it is a longer work.
And I hate that they just reject it on Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2855160405836770763.post-49089450419008439022016-06-06T20:47:00.001-07:002017-03-28T10:31:36.805-07:00Your book's Darkest MomentToday I want to talk about your book's Darkest Moment and give you some ideas about how to self-check that it's the best Darkest Moment it can be.
Illustration: "Pay's good" by TPA
What is the Darkest Moment?
It's that moment when it looks like your main character (MC) isn't going to get what they've been after all this time. Despite everything they've tried and all the tears they've cried, Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2855160405836770763.post-12280812601300652052016-05-16T12:27:00.001-07:002017-03-28T10:28:31.747-07:00Your first 5 pagesYou've heard it before, but it bears repeating: whether you start on a prologue or Chapter 1, the opening of your novel is important. It's what's going to either hook an agent, a publisher, and a reader or help them decide that your book isn't for them. A good first line is important, but if it's followed by several paragraphs of background information to set up your world or character, you're Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2855160405836770763.post-19785105701885022482016-05-03T12:50:00.000-07:002016-05-03T12:50:09.766-07:00Pitch to Publication: Reflections on the Editing Round
That time I thought I'd only take on 1 manuscript...
In March and April I was a participating editor in #P2P16. As a follow up to my post about the selection round, I wanted to share here some of my reflections on the editing round, which ran from March 12th to April 15th, and the goal of which was to work with my chosen authors to get their manuscripts ready for the agent round, April Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2855160405836770763.post-90322743202908643472016-04-05T11:50:00.000-07:002016-04-05T19:39:09.514-07:00Pitch to Publication: An Editor's PerspectiveLast month I participated for the first time in Pitch to Publication, not as a writer but as an editor. I had no idea what to expect, but I'm so glad I did it. In this post I reveal the work I did during the week of March 6th and how I made my decisions. I hope it will be helpful (or at least interesting) to writers who are thinking of submitting to P2P in the future.
Round 1
I received 86 Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2855160405836770763.post-20691097755335470062016-02-26T05:00:00.000-08:002016-02-26T05:00:00.178-08:00Pitch contestsIf you are an author who has finished writing The Thing and wants to get it published traditionally, there are many reasons to consider pitch contests.
Much has already been written on this subject by other bloggers, so instead of rehashing here, I'll point you to some of the articles I like:
On her blog Writability, Ava Jae has discussed the whys and why-nots of entering Twitter pitch contestsUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0