Wednesday links: Emotional descriptions and submission guidelines

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. Emotional Description: 3 Common Problems with Show & Tell, from Writers Helping Writers: Finding a good balance between showing and telling in a story can be difficult. It’s sometimes so difficult, in fact, that you could be making mistakes without even realizing it. Excerpt: “Writing compelling emotional moments is the lifeblood of any story and the key to building a relationship between characters and readers. Yet steering clear of the show-don’t-tell pitfalls requires practice and skill.”

2. Query question: submission guidelines that are off-putting, from Janet Reid: There will likely be times during your search for an agent when you’ll stumble across a submission guideline that you aren’t quite sure how to handle. Janet Reid clears up some confusion surrounding one such guideline. Excerpt: “I can understand why you’d look at this and think ‘Whoa! They’re saying it’s ok to steal my stuff.’ That is not the case.”