Literary Fiction

Here is a post from my website awhile back about literary fiction: post The post is discussing the differences between genre fiction and literary fiction. It also has a brief section that discusses how long your work would need to be if you wanted to publish. I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with

Religious Publishing

Here is a post from my website about the requirements for religious publications: https://stacylynjensen.com/2022/07/religious-publishing/ When I looked up the information for this kind of publishing, I was surprised at how difficult it seemed to be. The information I located was about non-fiction religious works, I assume. Where I live, there are christian-based fiction religious authors

Kid Lit

When looking at different genres in publishing and the requirements therein, children’s literature is the broadest. Which only makes sense, right? Children’s literature encompasses the very first cardboard books that are read to infants, all the way up through YA. It takes in all the genres therein, and goes from teaching small children how to read, to engaging new readers, and finally to those coming-of-age tales that live and die in the young adult genre.

Genres

Here’s a post from my website about the different genres, and why it’s important to know the differences: https://stacylynjensen.com/2022/07/genres-what-are-they-why-is-it-important-to-know/ I decided to write this because I kept (I still do) seeing people online (Reddit, mostly) ask in forums things like: “my sci-fi YA book is 120,000 words, and I queried every agent I can find,

Battling Negativity

I don’t know if it is inherent in being a writerly person, but it seems like all of us introspective types, all of us who love to read books and think long thoughts also have this problem of feeling like we aren’t enough. I am constantly having to battle my personal demon, the one who sits on my shoulder and tell me that no one wants to hear what I have to say.

Passive v. Active Voice in Writing

I think that it’s important to focus on active voice. Everyone can agree that their characters need to be the thing acting, rather than being acted upon. However, there are types of writing where we ask the writer to remove themselves from the action.

Character Arc

As much as I love writing and just seeing how things work out, I realize that, by not doing more planning, I’m ending up with more re-writing and revising after I’ve finished that dreaded rough/zero/whatever you want to call it draft. How do I break the cycle of writing just to tell myself the story?

Plot Archetypes

I think it’s endlessly fascinating that there are only so many kinds of stories. I also find it amazing that, when you put the idea of “only seven stories” to a test, it will hold water no matter what.

Zero Draft

I hadn’t heard the words before, but the concept is one that I’ve used myself. Essentially, that very first draft of work is not a first draft, not a rough draft, it’s a zero draft, where you spit all the parts of your story out into being for the very first time

Stress

My body has a reaction to stress. I don’t know if everyone has this problem, but when I get to the point where I am so stressed out, I feel like I start shutting down. I will decide that I need to have some time to do something silly. I need to just play video games for a while, or I need to write in my journal, or just sit in a room without anything happening.