Archetype Writing Blog

I'm really curious about what people are looking for when they visit the Archetype site, so I thought I'd ask. If you often come looking for more than one thing, either pick the thing that is most important to you or write about the other things in the Comments section for this blog entry.  Please also leave feedback in the Comments section about  whether you find what you need, what you'd like to see, etc.

A couple of people have asked me recently about the now-defunct newsletter.  I decided some time ago that a monthly newsletter served little purpose when I could post updates and news as often as I like on the blog.  Therefore, I gave up the newsletter in favor of the blog.

I felt the site itself was getting a little unwieldy, so I recently reorganized parts of it, including the Real Psychology and Resources areas.  I also sorted through and pruned some areas that weren't being used very often.  If you find that something you think was really important is now gone, just let me know.

Thanks!

New Q&A: Domestic Violence: How would a psychological professional respond to a woman who goaded an ex-boyfriend into hitting her?

Query Letters: Ten Ways to Hook a Literary Agent by Lisa Silverman
Here are ten query letter tips--some dos, some don'ts--to get you on track toward the representation and publication of your manuscript.

Holly Lisle's Bring Your Novel to Life article series:
You've read through what you've written, and you've discovered that your words don't move you. They don't make you want to keep reading. They don't make you laugh or cry. This series will help you fix that.

• Bring Your Novel to Life: Does Your Novel Have A Heartbeat? (part 1)
• Bring Your Novel to Life: How To Find Your Novel's Pulse (part 2) 
• Bring Your Novel to Life: Burying Your Novel's Message (part 3) 
• Bring Your Novel to Life: Playing Chicken with Your Story (part 4)
• Bring Your Novel to Life: Dig Deeper With Your Novel's Subthemes (part 5) 
• Bring Your Novel to Life: Interweaving Your Novel's Themes And Subthemes (part 6) 
• Bring Your Novel to Life: Planning A Heart-Stopping Story (part 7)
• Bring Your Novel to Life: Life, Passion... Deadline (part 8) 

Novel Synopsis Basics (part 1) and Writing a Novel Synopsis That Rocks (part 2) by HL Dyer

New Articles on the Archetype Site!

Writing the Query Letter Part 1 - The Hook by Elana Johnson
There are literally hundreds of websites where you can go to find out how to write a query letter. But the fact is, you don't want just a query letter. You want a great query letter--one that sets yours above the others.

Writing the Query Letter Part 2 - The Setup by Elana Johnson
Once you've hooked the agent to read your whole query letter, you've got to deliver. You can't just have a hook and then let everything else slide. Following the hook, you need to get to the problem.

Writing the Query Letter Part 3 - The Conflict by Elana Johnson
Now to the part that everyone wants to read—the conflict. Every novel needs it. In fact, the more conflict, the better. In the query letter, you want to highlight the main conflict, not every single one in every single chapter.

Writing the Query Letter Part 4 - The Consequence by Elana Johnson 
In the queries I've read, the consequence is what's lacking the most. The consequence. You've hooked me, set me up, explained the conflict that's keeping me from getting what I want, but…what will happen if I don't solve the conflict? That's the consequence.

Writing the Query Letter Part 5 - Everything Else by Elana Johnson
This part of the series tackles the title and word count, marketing and comparisons, and the bio.

Even if you've followed this series on the QueryTracker.net Blog , you'll want to check out the two links below:

At the bottom of each of Elana's articles is a link to a bonus -- a set of worksheets to help you write your own query letter!

Also be sure to check out Michelle McLean's take on how to write a hook: How To Write A Hook Line Or Logline.
Your hook line, like a logline, takes a story full of complex plotlines and high-concept ideas and breaks it down into a simple sentence that can be quickly and easily conveyed to a wide range of people. Your hook line is your first pitch in getting someone interested in your book. It can be used as the first line in your query letter, to help hook the agent into reading the rest of the letter and requesting information. And it is especially useful for those pitch sessions at conferences or lunches. When a prospective agent or editor asks you what your book is about, your hook line is your answer. Because it is a simple line or two, it is also handy for those family dinner parties when Grandma asks what your book is about.

Also don't miss The Writer's Guide to Research, also by Michelle McLean
As a writer who focuses mainly on historical settings, research is an important part of my writing process. In this article, learn how to research anything online!

Finally, I trimmed my blog post on Angst, Mental Illness, and Creativity into an article by the same name (link goes to the article).

Archetype Site Updates


Visual Prompts area has been updated.

Resources Reorganization

I divided the Writing & Editing into 2 new sections:

1. Writing Essentials (which includes information on Characterization and Genres)
2. Editing & Feedback

The Agents & Publishing area stayed the same.

The Real Psychology area, which used to be a mirror of (you guessed it) the site's Real Psychology section, has been updated and renamed Using Real Psychology.  You will now find articles in that area as well.

The Downloads area stayed the same.

The Research and Oddities section now has a wonderful article called The Writer's Guide to Research.  Keep an eye on this area, because author Michelle McLean is a researching expert (she has a Bachelor's degree in History and a Master's degree in English!), and I suspect we'll be seeing more articles on research from her.

The final two areas, Writing Links and Psych Links, stayed the same.

Carrie’s Analysis of Urban Fantasy Part I: The Formula by Carrie Vaughn

Carrie’s Analysis of Urban Fantasy Part II: When Things Go Wrong by Carrie Vaughn

Carrie’s Analysis of Urban Fantasy Part III: Deconstructing Urban Fantasy by Carrie Vaughn

I've added a Subscribe via Email link to the blog.  Sorry that took so long, I'm embarrassed to admit I didn't realize how popular it was to read blogs that way.

I also want to let you know about another writing site I'm now a part of: The QueryTracker.net Blog.

If by some chance you haven't visited QueryTracker.net yet, what are you waiting for?  It's the site for finding literary agents and tracking submissions to them.  I used it to find my agent.  I also blogged about it when I first found it, and I love it more now than I did when I found it.  It's free, though you can buy a premium subscription for extra features.  (I don't get a kickback if you start using QT, it's just that awesome.)

Along with four other fun, wacky women and the master sitebuilder himself, Patrick McDonald, I'll be blogging several times a week on hot topics like important industry news (including agent contests and announcements), hot writing and publishing tips, a soon-to-be announced QT Blog contest, and ways to use QueryTracker.net, QueryTracker Forum, and RallyStorm to help you become a better writer, find an agent, and get published!

Hey everyone, just in case you're wondering when I'm going to update the Archetype site again, the answer is....SOON. It can be tough to find quality articles to share with you, and there's been a bit of a dry spell. Add that to the NaNoWriMo craziness last month, and I got a little behind.

The good news is that I will have some time to do updates later this month, and a small group of talented writers is working on producing some new articles for you. If you have suggestions for articles you'd like to see, please feel free to leave a comment letting me know!  You could say something broad like, "I'd really love to see some new articles on characterization/plot/publishing/creativity/etc." or something more specific like "Have you thought about writing an article on which personality qualities help people get published?"  Either way, I love article suggestions!

Some people have also asked about the Archetype Newsletter. I stopped doing the newsletter several months ago because it took a long time to prepare. The number of subscribers just wasn't enough to justify the amount of time and energy it took me to create. As a tradeoff, I decided to put more time and energy into blogging. The nice thing about the blog is that you can subscribe to it and keep an eye out for updates in your RSS feed reader.

If there's anything about the newsletter you particularly miss (jargon, for example), please also feel free to leave me a comment about that; I can make an effort to include things like that in site updates.

• New Q&A: Leaving Delusions Behind: What is the motivation for a delusional person to get better when their delusional world is so much more pleasurable than their real one?
• New Jargon Terms: Decompensation, Conversion Disorder, Pathologize, Hysteria (outdated term)
• Visual Prompts updated
• Tapping Into Emotional Hot Buttons by Penny Sansevieri
• Borderline Personality Disorder by Arthur Buchanan 

Added some fresh articles and updated the Deviant Art Prompts!

• What Will Your Character Do When Disaster Strikes? by Carolyn Kaufman
• Playing Chicken With Your Story by Holly Lisle
• 8 Keys to a Successful Author Website by Karin Bilich

You should also check out RallyStorm, a new website by the creator of the wonderful QueryTracker.  On RallyStorm, writers can set up private critique forums for their readers.  And QueryTracker, of course, lets you track queries sent to agents, as well as share information with other writers about agents.

• Using Body Language in Writing by JJ Cooper: Former military interrogator JJ Cooper explains why body language is important to writers.
• Does Your Novel Have a Heartbeat?, How to Find Your Novel's Pulse, and Burying Your Novel's Message by full-time novelist Holly Lisle.
• Updated Visual Prompts from DeviantArt

New article: Gathering Information from Characters: Types of Questions
Summary: Former military interrogator JJ Cooper teaches you how to construct questions that get the answers you want from your characters!

New Article: The 5-Step Secret To Great Fiction
Summary: Stephen King says he starts his novels with a "What if?" question. And I have heard others say they just saw an image in their mind, or had a persistent sentence knocking on the inside of their brains, and they just followed that to where it lead them. And while their insight and tutelage is invaluable, when I was a budding writer it left me with another question: What's next?

New Article: The Six Writing Hats
Summary: Over the years I have studied the great storytellers, in an attempt to ascertain what sets them apart from others and sees their books sell in the millions, while tens of thousands of manuscripts never see the light of day. In an attempt to find an answer to this question I turned to one of the pioneers of thinking, Edward de Bono, and found that his seminal work on the Six Thinking Hats® applies perfectly to the art and craft of writing. So here is my version of the Six Writing Hats.

New Article: International Vampire Mythology
Summary: Modern mythology surrounding the Vampire is attributed to south eastern European countries like Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania. The general belief that Vampires are reborn from the corpse of a person bitten by a Vampire during life was contracted from the original myth, which claimed witches, evil people and suicide victims would rise from the grave in the guise of a Vampire.

New Article: Gauge or Caliber: Getting Your Research Right
Summary: Writers often need to know just what kind of weaponry their protagonists are using. Here's a useful primer as to the different terms and what they mean.

New Article: Biology of Depression
Summary: At one time, depression was seen as being solely the result of environmental factors such as upbringing, trauma, and stress. Research in the last few decades, however, has begun to reveal that depression has a strong biological basis that interacts with environmental factors to bring on the condition. Neurotransmission and brain chemicals are discussed.

New Article: The Harmful Emergence of Pro-Bulimia Attitudes
Summary: Though bulimia is classified as an eating disorder, not everyone with bulimia feels like they have a disorder. Some view bulimia and anorexia as lifestyles--chosen lifestyles.

New Article: Does Your Novel Have A Heartbeat?
Summary: Your theme is nothing more and nothing less than the heart of a novel. It is not a grade-school exercise in tedium, that single droning sentence you wrote that told your reader what you were going to tell him. In a novel, your theme is a living, vibrant, critical thing. It is your particular passion in this particular novel summed up in a handful of words. It is what you need to say.

New Article: Critiquing Fiction - Or How to Help Without Being Mean
Summary: An outline of things to consider when reading another's (or your own!) work.

New Article: Showing the Change in Characters through the Trajectory of a Story
Summary: In a good story, characters create conflict; consequently, conflict creates drama. In addition, a story shows more depth if its characters go through changes. The question is: how can a writer go about showing the changes inside his characters during the trajectory of the story?