Turning Up the Tension

Last person to identify
this movie still is a rotten egg.

The annual Florida SCBWI conference in Miami has to be one of the best kid lit conferences in the country: witness the many writers who whizzed down last weekend from Canada and New York to attend. I spent an intense day Friday in a novel workshop with agent Marietta Zacker and Y/A author Dorian Cirrone; we covered a lot of ground -- from writing tag lines to penning the novel's climactic scene, so I'll share just a piece of what we talked about when it comes to ratcheting up tension in your novel and keeping it high.

This is one of Dorian Cirrone's tips; she had ten in all. Keep an eye out for Dorian as she makes the round of national conferences. She's a pleasure to spend a day with. Her book Dancing in Red Shoes Will Kill You is available from Harper Teen.

1. Ramp up your dialogue. 

Three Easy Ways to Refresh Your Writing Today

1. Jump In to WriteOnCon

This free, two-day, on-line live writers conference starts this morning and runs through Thursday, featuring live forums for pitch sessions, queries, Q&As with agents, and critiques. Agents featured include Jessica Sinsheimer, Carlie Webber and Christina Hogrebe, Sara Megibow, Suzie Townsend, Jenny Bent, Kelly Sonnack, Ginger Clark, Holly Root, Alissa Eisner-Henkin, and Roseanne Wells, among many others.. Plus a slate of top-notch authors. The full schedule is here. The submission threads open 24 hours in advance of the live event, which means, basically, that you should be getting ready to submit right now if you want a pitch or query critique. Hint: the Middle Grade/Young Adult query critique opens at 10 a.m. this tomorrow morning. Click here to get started.

2. Find a Page of Dialogue in your WIP and Rewrite It