The 7am Novelist

Two important questions today from listeners. The first is worried about issues involving writing a series. The second wonders about close third-person point of view. We’ve got award-winning authors Allison Amend and Hank Phillippi Ryan to help us out. Watch a recording of our live webinar  here.  The audio/video version is available for one week. Missed it? Check out the podcast version above or...

The idea of “interiority” is all the talk these days, but what actually is it? How is it different from exposition and simply telling a reader about a character’s thoughts and feelings? How do you access that deeper level of character development and voice from which great interiority comes? We’ve got two master writers and teachers today to help us out: Dawn Tripp and Christopher Boucher Watch a...

Revision, it’s a monster. It’s also an absolute must. And it makes the difference between writers who are able to forge ahead and those who get stuck. But how do you go about it? And how do you avoid feeling like you’re doing it all wrong? We’ve got authors Hesse Phillips ( Lightbourne ) and Sara Johnson Allen ( Down Here We Come Up ) on board to help us out. Watch a recording of our live webinar ...

Because you do have to end your book at some point, right? Today we’ve got two questions from listeners, one about figuring out the climax of her book, how to know if she’s ending the book “the right way,” and keeping the momentum alive. The second listener wants to write an ending that is both powerful and memorable. We’ve got authors Colwill Brown ( We Pretty Piece of Flesh ) and Crystal King (...

A few years ago, writer Cathy Elcik hit a peculiar obstacle with her first novel: agents loved the writing but thought the subject was too “niche.” They asked: “What else do you have?” But she’d been working so hard on the “niche” novel, that she couldn’t give them the answer they wanted. Cathy went deep, trying to understand why publishing a book was so important to her, and she had a few vital e...

We hear from two listeners’ questions today: The first worries about knowing if her book is ready enough to begin querying. What does “done” really feel and look like when writing a book? The second talks about an issue that hits home with a lot of writers, though many don’t speak about it: The time a single writing project takes to finish can feel overwhelming, but what about trying to launch a w...

We’ve got two very different listeners’ questions today but they’re both common issues for writers to deal with. The first is trying to re-enter a 15-year old memoir manuscript the she needs to cut down enormously (either by 750K words or by 500 pages, depending on our understanding of her question. Either way: A lot!). The second wonders how he’s supposed to know what’s wrong with his query lette...

We hear from a writer today yearning to find a writing community, but not knowing how to do without spending money she doesn’t really have. Plus: A lot of questions we’re getting center on motivation in one way or another, so we’re going to discuss different kinds of motivations for different kinds of personalities. We’ve got writers Jessica Bird and Henriette Lazaridis to help us out. JOIN THE 7A...

We’re talking about two listeners’ questions today. The first worries that her book has lost its “freshness” after so many revisions and worries how to “get it back.” Is this a common worry among writers? Oh, yes it is. The second worries whether it’s time to break up with her book, how a writer knows, and how best to make decision. We have authors Emily Ross and Virginia Pye on board to help us o...

Jealousy and Exhaustion are two of the most common, and most difficult, obstacles to deal with in your writing career, yet we all suffer from them at one time or another. How do you tamp down your jealousy of other writers when the feeling makes you feel like an awful person in the first place? How do you deal with the long process of writing and publishing when you’re already exhausted by the ide...

When Michael Giddings wanted to publish his in-between-sized debut, Kelly Marie Wants to Talk to You , he turned to the the award-winning publisher, Cupboard Pamphlet, and their chapbook contest. But for Giddings, Kelly Marie exists in a much larger world of interconnected stories and images. What do you do when a character’s fictional world becomes a much-larger world of its own? Giddings talks a...

We hear from two listeners today: The first worries about narrative dissonance and his ability to spot it, the second is aching for a room of her own. Authors Sara Johnson Allen, Cara Wood, and Joanna Rakoff join us. Watch a recording of our live webinar  here.  The audio/video version is available for one week. Missed it? Check out the podcast version above or on your favorite podcast platform. S...

We hear from two listeners today who share two very common writing issues. The first talks about the emptiness she feels about both her ideas and confidence in getting them on the page when she finally pushes life aside and sits down to write. The second worries about the strength of her stories, a worry that is causing her desire to write to fade away. We’ve got authors Hesse Phillips ( Lightborn...

We hear from two writers today: The first received some not-so-helpful feedback from a single agent about the “strength of her writing.” So is the agent just wrong or is there something there? Most likely it’s the first, but if you’re worried about your writing style, we’ve got some pointers. The second finds her writing “boring.” What to do? We’ve got writers Jessica Bird, Kathleen Flynn, and And...

Research! The fear of it. The overwhelming abundance of possibilities. And everything we don’t know! (Plus everything that we want to know because, oh, that’s really interesting. I’ll just click on…) We’ve got authors in both nonfiction and fiction, Lauren Aguirre and Anjali Mitter Duva, to help us out. Watch a recording of our live webinar  here.  The audio/video version is available for one week...

We hear from a short story writer today dipping her toes into her first novel and having trouble getting her characters to commit. How is character development different between a novel and short story? And how can you wrangle with a character who suffers from a short attention span? We’ve got authors Christine Murphy, Emily Ross, and Joanna Rakoff to help us out. Watch a recording of our live web...

We talk to Aube Rey Lescure just days away from launching her debut, RIVER EAST, RIVER WEST. And guess what? It’s not all the dream she’d thought it would be. We talk about what a lot writers go through when publishing their first books (or even their tenth), how she got to this stage in the first place, and how she’s forging ahead on her second novel. To watch a recording of our interview, click...

We hear from one of our listeners today who is having trouble beginning her second book after she’s finished her first and finds herself in the querying stage. A tough place to be! But lots of writers have gone through it. We’ve got some suggestions for her (as well as for you) about how to dive into the messiness of a new project, drop expectations, and avoid focusing on the end point. Authors Ch...

We hear from a writer of historical fiction today who is worried about a lot of interrelated issues: her addiction to research, using her writing time “well,” and how to get excited again when she can’t make up her mind on too many aspects of the book. We’ve got writers Timothy Deer and Hesse Phillips to help us out. Watch a recording of our live webinar  here.  The audio/video version is availabl...

We hear from two writers today with very common writing issues. The first is trying to get over the “boredom” he hits at the midpoint. The second wants help with finishing (and overcoming the perfection that blocks her from being able to do so). We’ve got two authors helping us out. Nancy Crochiere is fresh off the launch of her award-winning debut novel, GRACELAND, and Sara Shukla will be launchi...

We hear from two writers today who suffer from some pretty common obstacles when it comes to what holds them back from their writing. The first talks about her submission anxiety, a fear of both failure and success. The second wonders how she can write character-driven prose instead of plot-driven prose that pushes her characters into unlikely scenarios. We’ve got writers and performers Liesl Swog...

What is spitballing? A way to open up new ideas and possibilities in response to a writer’s story in a way that brightens their imagination and allows them to “steer into the curve,” making the story truly their own. Michael Lowenthal, who teaches a similar workshop method with the Story Lab at Lesley University, gives us some pointers about how to make the process work and what to avoid. There’s...

Yael Goldstein-Love discusses the first pages of her latest novel, The Possibilities , how she set the tone of her book with an unusual first chapter, how she managed emotion to avoid melodrama, her background as a mother and psychotherapist and how these inform her work, and the best way to use a therapist and therapy itself in your book. Goldstein-Love’s first pages can be found here. Help local...

Alex Marzano-Lesnevich discusses the first pages of their essay “Futurity” which appeared in the 2022 Best American Essays. We talk about their splintered approach to the essay during a splintered time, how they bypassed the usual expectations of structure and made their process physical (hint: it involved little pieces of paper) with the help of Jane Allison’s beloved craft book Meander, Spiral,...

Carter Sickles discusses the first pages of his latest novel, The Prettiest Star , including the importance of setting and belonging for his queer character, threading in the all-important backstory of loss, the necessity of witnessing and documenting what shouldn’t be forgotten, and how he handled multiple points of view. Sickles’ first pages can be found here. Help local bookstores and our autho...