tagged with novels

“
You can end a story in almost any way, as long as the ending is inevitable, satisfying, and logical. Yet, keep in mind the reader’s expectations, expectations for stories in general and your story in particular. Never forget that real people will be reading your work. Yours is not likely the first novel they’ve read, nor the first of the genre. They don’t read in a vacuum. They bring experiences with them, both from life and from reading other books.

- Beth Hill, fiction editor, from “Bad Novel Endings: Deliver the Payoff.”

6th April 2011
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writing novels books endings 
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Famous Last Words: Our 20 Favorite Final Lines in Literature

http://flavorwire.com/167171/famous-last-words-our-20-favorite-final-lines-in-literature

What about yours?

4th April 2011
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writing last lines novels books 
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The Long and Writing Road

http://blog.janicehardy.com/2011/04/long-and-writing-road.html

Good read on traditional publishing process, what’s involved, what support there is, and what to expect. Janice Hardy boils down her first 3 years/books.

4th April 2011
3 notes
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writing editing publishing books novels editors literary agents 
31st March 2011
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kazuo ishiguro jamie keenan cover design books novels 
29th March 2011
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david foster wallace the pale king books novels 

Please pass the books

I came across this article, “Read ‘em and keep: what are the books to pass on to the next generation?” in The Guardian and thought about what I’d pass on… a difficult decision — who is the target, what would I want to convey, could I narrow it down to one favorite?

Which book, “classic,” would you pass on? and why?

29th March 2011
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books classics novels 
Cover design by Chip Kidd. By using a semi-transparent vellum for the jacket, and printing the woman’s image in a positive/negative scheme with the title on the outside layer and the rest of her on the binding, once the jacket is wrapped around the book it ‘completes’ the picture of her face. But something odd is definitely going on, and before the reader even reads a word, he or she is forced to consider the idea of someone going from one plane of existence to another.

Cover design by Chip Kidd.

By using a semi-transparent vellum for the jacket, and printing the woman’s image in a positive/negative scheme with the title on the outside layer and the rest of her on the binding, once the jacket is wrapped around the book it ‘completes’ the picture of her face. But something odd is definitely going on, and before the reader even reads a word, he or she is forced to consider the idea of someone going from one plane of existence to another.

25th March 2011
8 notes
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1q84 chip kidd cover design haruki murakami books novels 
“It’s small, light and portable – and it doesn’t need charging. So could the new ‘flipback’ book be the next big thing in publishing?”

“It’s small, light and portable – and it doesn’t need charging. So could the new ‘flipback’ book be the next big thing in publishing?”

20th March 2011
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books publishing flipback novels 
Bi Feiyu, author of Three Sisters, wins the 2010 Man Asian Literary Prize. “The author becomes the third Chinese writer to win the Prize in its four year history.”

Bi Feiyu, author of Three Sisters, wins the 2010 Man Asian Literary Prize.

“The author becomes the third Chinese writer to win the Prize in its four year history.”

17th March 2011
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bi feiyu man asian literary prize authors books writers novels 
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Where the Cover of Your Favorite Novel Comes From

http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/03/where-the-cover-of-your-favorite-novel-comes-from/72465/

The Farrar, Straus and Giroux art director behind the jackets of Freedom and 2666 explains what goes into designing a book.

16th March 2011
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book covers novels books design 
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The Art of Chaptering

http://bloodredpencil.blogspot.com/2011/03/art-of-chaptering.html

Before you click the link: Do you like to read with or without chapters? Why?

16th March 2011
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chapters novels books reading 
“
Past the flannel plains and blacktop graphs and skylines of canted rust, and past the tobacco-​brown river overhung with weeping trees and coins of sunlight through them on the water downriver, to the place beyond the windbreak, where untilled fields simmer shrilly in the a.m. heat: shattercane, lamb’s‑quarter, cutgrass, sawbrier, nutgrass, jimsonweed, wild mint, dandelion, foxtail, muscadine, spinecabbage, goldenrod, creeping charlie, butter-​print, nightshade, ragweed, wild oat, vetch, butcher grass, invaginate volunteer beans, all heads gently nodding in a morning breeze like a mother’s soft hand on your cheek.

-

David Foster Wallace, opening sentence of The Pale King.

When David Foster Wallace killed himself in 2008, he left behind an unfinished manuscript and a number of fragments that, with the efforts of his long-time editor Michael Pietsch, has become The Pale King, to be released next month amid the high expectations of the late writer’s many fans.

The Pale King by David Foster Wallace

(Source: themillions.com)

15th March 2011
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david foster wallace the pale king authors writers books novels 
art-history: Edward Ruscha, The End, 1991. Synthetic polymer paint and graphite on canvas, 70 x 112 in. Museum of Modern Art, New York Does anyone out there know of any contemporary novels (not children’s or YA) that end with, “The End”? I might try sneaking it in…

art-history:

Edward Ruscha, The End, 1991. Synthetic polymer paint and graphite on canvas, 70 x 112 in. Museum of Modern Art, New York

Does anyone out there know of any contemporary novels (not children’s or YA) that end with, “The End”?

I might try sneaking it in…

15th March 2011
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the end novels ed ruscha art writing 
Reblogged from junk bond trader by junkbondtrader
From Arts Beat at the New York Times: “Jennifer Egan won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction at the Tishman Auditorium of the New School on Thursday night for “A Visit From the Goon Squad” (Knopf), a wildly inventive novel of interlocking stories. Ms. Egan beat out Jonathan Franzen for his best seller “Freedom”; David Grossman; Paul Murray; and Hans Keilson for the prize.”

From Arts Beat at the New York Times:

“Jennifer Egan won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction at the Tishman Auditorium of the New School on Thursday night for “A Visit From the Goon Squad” (Knopf), a wildly inventive novel of interlocking stories.

Ms. Egan beat out Jonathan Franzen for his best seller “Freedom”; David Grossman; Paul Murray; and Hans Keilson for the prize.”

10th March 2011
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a visit from the goon squad fiction jennifer egan national book critics award authors novels books writers 

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