Wednesday links: World-building, hiring editors, and revealing secrets

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. World-Building through Your Characters’ Eyes, from Live Write Thrive: World-building is an important part of any novel. The thing is, you can’t just drop the world-building into your narrative; you have to work it in naturally. Excerpt: “World-building is a writing term most often heard in discussions of fantasy and sci-fi novels—genres that require writers are create complex realms, often with rules different from our own. But in fact, all books need a certain amount of world-building, even if it’s just conveying the layout of a school, the interior of a restaurant, or the clues of a murder scene.”
2. When You Shouldn’t Hire and Pay For a Professional Editor, from Jane Friedman: Some people might think hiring a professional editor is a good idea in every situation, but that’s not necessarily the case. Sometimes, it’s a better idea to hold off. Excerpt: “But while it’s lovely to be an established—or even aspiring—writer who can afford editing, that doesn’t mean you should turn to it every time you need to make a piece sparkle. Such an approach amounts to wasted money, as well as wasted opportunity to practice a valuable skill.”
3. Revealing secrets, from Janet Reid: If you’re getting ready to query your novel (or already querying it), and your main character has a big secret, you may be wondering whether you should reveal that secret in your query. Janet Reid has the answer. Excerpt: “If you won’t put it on the back of the book jacket, don’t put it in the query. I like to read queries and pages as though I am a reader in a bookstore. Surprise me!”