Jade Varden Official Blog

Any novel is made up of many different elements. There's the story itself, and the cover of course, and you can't forget about the title or the blurb. Then maybe you'll need a trailer, a whole marketing campaign, an idea for a sequel...it's a lot to do. But while you're doing all that, don't forget another important element: the log line.  Teasing Them The log line, also spelled logline and log-line, is a one-phrase teaser for your book. Even if you don't recognize the terminology, you've definitely seen log lines before. A good log line is a great hook for readers, a brief taste of your writing and everything the story has in store for them. The log line can bring the entire cover design together, tempting readers to explore further. To come up with a good one, try to sum up your book in a single sentence, without giving away any sort of spoilers. Vague is okay as long as it's really interesting.  Place the log line prominently on...

Lots of authors have "day jobs." This is because writing books really doesn't pay well, unless you're a prolific bestseller like Stephen King or you write a runaway hit like Stephenie Meyer. In perusing forums, a hobby that's eating away at much of my free time , I've discovered that many indie authors dream of the day when they can become full-time writers. But be careful what you wish for. It's time to find out what it's like to write full-time. Writing All the Time I am a full-time writer, and it's not glamorous. It's not even convenient. What's it like to write full-time? It's like having 5 different parents, or rowdy children, demanding something from you every single second. And it's a whole lot like staring at a screen for 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. Out of the 80-plus hours you spend writing in a given week, you're incredibly lucky it you get to spend 5 of them writing something you actually want to writ...

So, I'm obsessed with The Time Machine , the story by H. G. Wells. I've always been fascinated by time travel, and as a point of fact I very sincerely believe that Back to the Future , and not Star Wars , is the best movie trilogy ever created. Wouldn't it be amazing to go back in time? Or even better, to go forward? But time isn't the main reason I'm obsessed with the story, why I find reasons to bring it up all the time (and spend a ton of time getting completely blank stares in return). It's because of the way the story ends...and not even the way it ends on the page.  That's the Power of Words In the original short story, the main character doesn't have a name and he comes to a very vague end. The reader sees him leave in his time machine, and he's pretty much never heard from again. It's not the greatest of endings (sorry, Mr. Wells), and that's why it got changed for the 1960s film adaptation.  In the film version of ...

What's the secret to being a better writer? Read a lot . Now, you've got to figure out how to fund your book habit without going broke.  Easier Reading Isn't Always Cheaper Ereaders like the Kindle have put hundreds of books in every reader's hands, but the easy availability of ebooks doesn't automatically equal cheaper reading. Even if you set a spending limit, buying books adds up quickly. Suppose you never spend more than $5 on a book. Read three books a week, and you're $15 in the hole before you get your next paycheck. It starts to add up. There are ways to fund your book habit, however, and get your reading material...and no, I'm not going to tell you to go to the library. Swap: Visit Paperbackswap to list the books you're willing to trade, and get the books you want in return. The website connects book lovers who want to swap, and makes it easy for you to keep yourself in fresh reading material. Review: Start reviewing books o...

You know how they say that no matter what you write, it's all been done before? They're 100% correct. Pygmalion , you will find, is a plot line that still appears in modern story all the time...and it was written two thousand years ago. The Book Chances are pretty good that no matter what you want to write about, your main theme was already written into a play by the Greeks, or Shakespeare, and likely both. Such is the case with Pygmalion , which revolves around a now-classic plot. It appears as one in a series of epic poems written by Ovid back in BC. In this early version, it's about a sculptor who falls in love with his own creation. I can relate to that. Don't all writers fall in love with certain books, certain characters, maybe even just a paragraph? In the story, the sculptor (he's the title character) takes his love to the alter of Venus, and she is transformed into flesh. It ends happily. And it's a familiar theme. Remember Pino...

Love is a big focus of February, and it commonly crops up in books. By no means is love limited to the romance genre (though this genre is dedicated to the emotion). It appears in mysteries, horror novels, suspense tales, science fiction, YA...well, we don't have all day. When characters fall in love, you've got to write it in a believable way. Otherwise, I won't feel the love...and then, what the heck is the point of having it in the book?  Lovely Stereotypes When characters fall in love on the page, authors are always taking a risk. Love is perhaps the hardest of all emotions to define, and it's certainly difficult to recreate in fiction. How does one describe the euphoria...and the unspeakable pain? The deep longing for togetherness...and the desperate fear of losing one's own independence?  Yeah, it's hard to write about love. I know this because I've seen so many authors get it totally wrong. Look out for common love traps in your ow...

"I was on the edge of my seat by the end and I stayed up until one am to finish it then immediately downloaded book two."  "There are many more interesting characters to round out the cast, each with their own secrets and mysteries. To be honest I'm not sure our main character can trust a single one of them." Justice (Deck of Lies, #1) has been reviewed at A Thousand Lives. Read it to find out why the reviewer gave the book the highest possible rating!

Do you know how to interpret the rejection letters you get? Figure out what agents really mean when they say your book "isn't the right fit" or "doesn't meet our current needs," and figure out what you need to do to start getting some different answers.  Interpreting the Literary Agents Literary agents speak in a polite code couched in metaphors...and it practically takes a degree to figure out. I myself have received many, many hundreds of rejection letters, so I can speak with some authority when I say that rejections are all very similar. You'll see the same vague phrases over and over, and it's easy for authors to make themselves crazy staring again and again at those words. Stop staring. It's time to decipher those polite phrases, and figure out what agents actually mean when they say what they say.  Form Rejections Just about every author has received form rejection letters. These are generic slips of paper or ema...