Wednesday links: Comp titles and keeping track of characters

I love regularly reading tips and advice articles in certain subjects — particularly writing and publishing. I don’t always need the information right then, but I know that it’ll eventually come in handy. Or at least, I hope it will.

I know there are a lot of other people out there who feel the same way I do, but sometimes it can be difficult to find every useful advice article that’s out there. So I thought I’d bring you a few.

Here are the tips and advice articles that jumped out at me the most over the past week.

1. Effective comp titles, from Janet Reid: When you’re working to get your book published, it’s important that you have a list of titles that are comparable to your manuscript. But, it’s also important to know why those titles are comparable. Excerpt: “The point I’m slithering toward making here is that when you want to compare your manuscript to a published book in your query letter to give the reading agent a sense of where your book will fit in its category, you must be able to answer WHY the book is comparable.”

2. False Teeth and Blue Eyes: Keeping Track of Characters, from Fiction Notes: There are few things more annoying when reading a novel than having to keep track of characters who can’t seem to keep track of themselves. Basically, you need to keep your characters consistent. Excerpt: “Traditionally, novelists have been told to keep track of their characters with a Character Bible. Especially for a series that features the same characters, it’s important that a blue-eye beauty in Book 1 is still a blue-eyed beauty in Book 3.”