A Novel Ending

It’s the final episode of A Novel Ending podcast! In the finale, Kat and Joanna chat about the importance of reassessing your writing goals and priorities throughout your career and how it’s important to make changes when needed. 

We want to extend a huge THANK YOU to everyone who has listened to our podcast. We’re so grateful for your support and hope we’ve helped you, at least in some small way, in your own writing journey. Happy revising!

For show notes, visit anovelending.com.

Joanna offers editorial services! To learn more, visit her editorial page.

Connect with Joanna on her website or Instagram @jmercerbooks.
Connect with Kat on her website or Instagram @katsawriter.

Throughout your writing career (and especially after big life moments), it’s important to step back and assess how, when, and where you write. In this episode, we share different ways we’ve shaken up our writing lifestyle to help us get unstuck, to maximize our productivity, and to just keep things fun and fresh. We also talk about goals and writing sprints, how they can be helpful and why they might not help at all. 

The book Joanna mentioned in this episode is: Rachel Aaron's 2,000 to 10,000

For show notes, visit anovelending.com.

Joanna offers editorial services! To learn more, visit her editorial page.

Connect with Joanna on her website or Instagram @jmercerbooks.
Connect with Kat on her website or Instagram @katsawriter.

In this episode, Kat interviews sisters and co-writers of the YA novel Lucy, Uncensored. Mel and Teghan Hammond share the ups and downs of their co-writing process, their thoughts on having an outline, and discuss how their communication changed over the course of co-writing their book. They also offer helpful tips for any writers looking to co-write and list some important qualities you should look for in a potential co-writer.

Connect with our guests!
melhammondbooks.com
Teghan's instagram @teghanandromeda
Mel's instagram @hamsandwichmel
TikTok @hamtasticduo

For show notes, visit anovelending.com.

Joanna offers editorial services! To learn more, visit her editorial page.

Connect with Joanna on her website or Instagram @jmercerbooks.
Connect with Kat on her website or Instagram @katsawriter.

Kat interviews librarians Amanda Bosky and Mary Ostrander about what makes for an engaging and page-turning children’s story - what captures the audience when a book is read out loud? Between the two of them, Amanda and Mary have read thousands of picture books, and by page spread three, if not sooner, they can tell if a story will be worth a share or not. Listen in as they discuss different tools an author can use to keep the reader turning the page, how to marry picture book text and illustrations, and other tips to keep kids and parents coming back to your story again and again.

For show notes, visit anovelending.com.

Joanna offers editorial services! To learn more, visit her editorial page.

Connect with Joanna on her website or Instagram @jmercerbooks.
Connect with Kat on her website or Instagram @katsawriter.

Joanna interviews young adult and picture book writer Liza Wiemer on the importance of doing your homework before you even start writing a project, especially if your project is based off of a real-life event, not to mention real people! Liza shares the various strategies she uses to conduct research, from visiting sites to interviewing subject matter experts. Additionally, Liza talks about why it’s best to use more than one sensitivity reader during all stages of your writing and revising process.

Connect with our guest!
lizawiemer.com
Instagram @lizamwiemer

For show notes, visit anovelending.com.

Joanna offers editorial services! To learn more, visit her editorial page.

Connect with Joanna on her website or Instagram @jmercerbooks.
Connect with Kat on her website or Instagram @katsawriter.

One of the final passes you (or an editor) will do on a manuscript is a copy edit. It’s important for your grammar, punctuation, and sentences to be correct, clear, and accessible for your readers. But what if you don’t know all the rules or even what to look out for? We chat about common mistakes we see, our favorite comma and punctuation rules, and more!

For show notes, visit anovelending.com.

Joanna offers editorial services! To learn more, visit her editorial page.

Connect with Joanna on her website or Instagram @jmercerbooks.
Connect with Kat on her website or Instagram @katsawriter.

Are you the kind of writer who drafts a lot of words, or the kind who drafts short? Particularly with debut novels, agents match genres to preferred word counts in order to gauge if a story is underedited or sparse. These expectations can be a great guideline for any author, helping point us in the right direction for revisions. If you’re staring at a bloated manuscript, or are struggling to beef up that word count, join us in this episode where we explore both big picture ways to cut and add words, as well as share tips on how to do this on a sentence level.

For show notes, visit anovelending.com.

Joanna offers editorial services! To learn more, visit her editorial page.

Connect with Joanna on her website or Instagram @jmercerbooks.
Connect with Kat on her website or Instagram @katsawriter.

Clunky descriptions can confuse your reader, going on too long can bog down your scene, and too little can fail to immerse your reader into your character’s world. How then, do you find the right balance? In this continuation of our Revising for Clarity series, we chat about how to make sure your descriptions are clear and effective, and how you can use them to enhance your world building and character development.

For show notes, visit anovelending.com.

Joanna offers editorial services! To learn more, visit her editorial page.

Connect with Joanna on her website or Instagram @jmercerbooks.
Connect with Kat on her website or Instagram @katsawriter.

In the third episode of our series “Revising for Clarity” we look at the importance of order. Without a very careful and steady hand, messing with the linear way you relay information and tell a story can easily lead to confusion on a sentence, scene, and overall story level. Join us as we break down some mistakes we see when it comes to this topic, some tips on how to fix those mistakes, and what to be thinking about if you are hoping to tell a story out of order intentionally.

The Netflix show Joanna mentions in this episode is called Kaleidoscope.

For show notes, visit anovelending.com.

Joanna offers editorial services! To learn more, visit her editorial page.

Connect with Joanna on her website or Instagram @jmercerbooks.
Connect with Kat on her website or Instagram @katsawriter.

In the second episode of our Revising for Clarity series, we chat about fluff chapters–what they are, how to identify them in your manuscripts, and what you can try to give them more substance. We also talk about stage direction - when too much detracts from your scene versus when you might use it to your advantage - as well as why it’s a good idea to write to genre expectations.

For show notes, visit anovelending.com.

Joanna offers editorial services! To learn more, visit her editorial page.

Connect with Joanna on her website or Instagram @jmercerbooks.
Connect with Kat on her website or Instagram @katsawriter.