Giveaway Winner, Stacey Wallace Benefiel's New Book, and Changing up ROW80 Goals Again!

nd the winner is...

Justine Dell's been on a blog tour to promote her new book and visited here last week! The winner of her giveaway on my blog is:

Nutschell!

Congratulations!

Here's an interesting question:



How would you explain certain books to difficult parents?

Speaking of books, Stacey Wallace Benefiel has a new one out!

And if you're still querying, like me, Jo Bourne has - as usual - some great tips:

"'My story is about several main characters. Which one do I build my query letter around?'

I have answers for about anything.

An ensemble cast of four, heigh-ho

So let's say your story follows four characters' intertwined lives. You want to know which of these four stories to emphasize in your query letter.

The really short answer is -- Any of them.
Your query letter can approach the manuscript using any main character as your focal point.
I don't say you necessarily can talk about this manuscript mainly from the experience of the dog, but close.

If you have a strong instinct to cast the query using the story of LolaJo instead of Kindle, Edward, or Framis, then do so.
Nobody knows the story better than you.

I like the rest of her advice because it applies not just to query writing but overall editing:

Actually, speaking of querying (changing up ROW80 goals again!), I've made a momentous decision, thanks to help from fellow Forumites: I'm putting querying for Out of the Water on hold, and concentrating full-time on Druid's Moon. Then I might switch to typing up and editing Santiago and Magdalena's story. There are some basic reasons why Out of the Water isn't exactly working, mainly having to do with how long the story needs to be and how long it isn't right now - which makes the opening a little less emotional and character-connected than it could be. And of course the opening is what most people see...

Have you made any big writing decisions lately?