Do you feel it? Emotions writing prompts

I've been hard at work on several collections of writing prompts that I hope to release in the coming months. Just for fun, I thought I'd give you a small taste of what's in store. The prompts below are a very small sampling of the character and emotions prompts collection, over 1,000 in all. on 40 different emotions and numerous aspects of character development.

(Update: 1001 Evocative Prompts for Fiction Writers is available NOW!)

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Emotions are the raw material for all creative writing (and quite a lot of nonfiction as well). Use one of the following prompts to delve into a strong emotion, writing as yourself, a fictional character, or a poetic persona. Let your exploration lead you toward the beginnings of a work of memoir, fiction or poetry. Some hint at a particular genre, others could be spun to fit multiple genres.

Amusement / Mirth

• The best prank I’ve ever pulled / heard about.
• How the court jester turned back an invading army.
• Ten terrible metaphors and/or similes
• Epic fail involving a skateboard, trampoline, or rope swing.
• Mischievous magical folk create havoc in a village one spring evening.
• Ten of the most ridiculous ways to kill off a character.
• I can’t keep a straight face when I see ____.
• A group of stand-up comics is taken hostage and must joke their way out of captivity.

Boredom

• The most boring family event I can remember (or imagine)
• You are a spinster noblewoman in 1815 England.
• An athlete recovering from a concussion may not do, watch, or read anything to rest his/her injured brain.
• A child’s eye view of a wedding.
• You work as a lifeguard at a lap pool in a retirement home.
• The diary of a prisoner in solitary confinement.
• To marry your true love, you must attend weekly three-hour prayer meetings with your future in-laws for the next six months.
• The dullest person you have ever dated.
• An astronaut must live alone on a space station for a year.

Defeat / Discouragement

• A setback or failure from which you thought you would never recover.
• You missed the last bus/train/flight for the day.
• Your science fair invention works perfectly until the judges come to observe it.
• A false rumor causes everyone to shun you.
• In a team competition, your teammates suffer a series of injuries, one after another.
• Your corporate sponsor threatens to withdraw funding for a minor mistake.
• You can’t hold a job because of a crazy relative who makes trouble everywhere.
• A chronic illness makes it impossible to complete an important task.

Embarrassment

• I have never been so embarrassed as when ____.
• A beauty queen gets a nosebleed/gas attack during a pageant.
• A dignitary comes for dinner and you/your child/your pet vomits on him/her.
• Your swimsuit gets gobbled up by the pool drainage system.
• Your parent with Tourette’s Syndrome chaperones the class trip/school dance.
• The bakery accidently sends a lewd bachelorette party cake for Nana’s 90th birthday party.
• The fart that changed my destiny.
• Your doting mother shows off your baby pictures/awkward adolescent pictures/dweeby polka-band pictures to a potential mate.

Hope

• You romantically connect with someone on a chance encounter, and the person asks for your number or gives you theirs.
• A woman who has suffered several miscarriages enters the 36th week of a healthy pregnancy.
• Describe the bodily sensations you have when you are hopeful.
• Interstellar explorers find what looks like a viable planet for colonization, capable of sustaining human life.
• A cancer patient begins an experimental treatment.
• Police get an anonymous tip about a cold case.
• The addict you love reaches their first anniversary of sobriety.
• A group of castaways finds a crate on the beach full of farming and fishing equipment.

Shame

• I could never tell ____.
• How someone with an eating disorder might think about his/her body.
• What deeply shameful experience could I more easily write myself free of if I gave it to a fictional character?
• What skeletons do my parents have in their closets?
• The day I realized there was something deeply wrong with me.
• What shameful secret might my antagonist hide at all costs?
• Deeply religious parents learn their child is leaving the faith because…
• You learn that your parent or grandparent was once a Nazi, a torturer, or slave dealer.
• A doctor makes a simple error that causes a patient to ____.

Interested in doing more with emotion in your writing? Pick up my guided journal Emotions in the Wild: A Writer's Observation Journal. This tool, based on exercises used in method acting, leads you through observation activities so that you can better describe character emotional responses in your writing. 

Pocket sized, with plenty of space to record your observations, this is a tool useful for writers of any genre. 

Available here: 
Amazon / Barnes and Noble / Createspace / Book Depository

Which of these prompts appeal most to you? Why?

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Transforming our struggles into art

with guest author Laurie Lewis

Image credit: jclk8888 on morguefile.com

I was eager to learn more about the story behind the story of The Dragons of Alsace Farm from my guest, author Laurie Lewis. Her new women's fiction novel  has some resonances with my new YA novel  Almost There: family secrets tucked away in an elderly person's home, a French grandparent, dementia, and the haunting presence of WWII, though I deal with different generations--Millennial, Gen X and Silent Generation (born during the war).

The real-life issues she turns into fiction will resonate with many of us watching our parents or grandparents decline. And so will the hope infused in this novel.

What's the story behind your intriguing title?

Great question. I wrestled over that title for months, even up to the day I submitted the manuscript, and I still worry whether it will resonate with readers, but my heart told me this was the title, and I’m crossing my fingers that when the last page turns, readers will agree it was the perfect title.

Here’s how I came up with it. Agnes survived the bombing of the Alsace region of France during WWII, and when her family moved to America, they named their farm after their homeland. The Dragon reference ties into Agnes’s past, and a mystery in the book, so I can’t give that away, but because of Agnes’s past, “Dragons” became the catchphrase for everything that challenges or frightens her.

What drew you to write about a character with dementia?

My beautiful, gentle mother inspired the story. She had a ramshackle farm she loved, and sadly, she was diagnosed with dementia several years ago.

We were unprepared for the decisions we had to make on her behalf. I soon realized how many friends were experiencing the same challenges with their parents, finding themselves in the uncomfortable position of parenting a parent. We knew Mom was afraid of the changes over which she had no control, but she was also still Mom—fun, happy, loving, caring. So instead of just creating a WWII survivor, I ramped up the tension by placing Agnes on the dementia spectrum.

What special research was required to write this intergenerational story?

A lot came from personal observation. A young couple with mild disabilities moved onto Mom’s farm for a few months. Mom believed she was helping them, and they felt they were helping Mom. I was fascinated by the way these three disabled people strengthened one another and themselves through serving each other, and I wanted to introduce that element into the book.

I met with a social worker to suggest a program where people who need a home could be paired with people who had a home but needed a little help. I cited the story above, and they thought the idea had promise, but there was no funding to try such an experiment, and it never was implemented.

As for Noah and Tayte, I remembered a sequel I had written years ago to my first novel, “Unspoken.” I never published it, but I loved the personal dynamic of the emotionally broken characters, so when I began drafting “Dragons,” I placed them in the story, and had them fill that helping role with Agnes.

I interviewed doctors, caregivers, therapists, and other families affected by dementia in order to illustrate the challenges families face with this diagnosis. Two friends/family therapists helped me assure that all these complicated characters—Agnes, Noah, and Tayte—were accurate depictions of people with their mental and physical concerns.

Tell us a little about your story's themes.

My favorite theme comes from a moment when Agnes fights the pull of dementia by remembering love. “Remember love,” is my battle cry now.

The power of redemption runs strong through the book. I hope people will close “Dragons” and feel hopeful, empowered, and refreshed.

The book really is about families and love. The power of tested love, the promise of new love, the strength of family love, and the courage they require from us.

What did you learn while writing this book?

I had a long hiatus between my last book and this one, so I first relearned how much I adore creating stories and characters. I also wish I could get a do-over with Mom. I would have spent more time asking her questions, recording her answers, and her stories. So we have little adventures now. Agnes has taught me how to love Mom where and as she is.

Which chapter was your favorite to write?

Oh, that’s easy. Twenty-seven, with twenty-three coming in a close second. These are the chapters when Noah comes into his own, when he loses himself through helping Agnes, and in the end, finds the answer to question that most plagued him—what kind of man was he?

What's the best piece of writing advice you've ever received?

Just start. We all have a story to tell. Just begin getting it down on paper. The editing and perfecting can come later, but get your ideas down on paper, for yourself, for your family, and for others who will be impacted by what you write.

Everyone has their secrets and Tayte, Agnes, and Noah are no exception. In Agnes’s home, though, those secrets—or dragons—might just tear them all apart. Part of the Kindle Scout competition, The Dragons of Alsace Farm, was hot and trending for four weeks before its launch. Find out why during this blog tour!

About the Book

In need of his own redemption, Noah Carter finally confronts his childhood hero, the once-beloved uncle who betrayed him. Instead of vengeance, he offers forgiveness, also granting Uncle John a most curious request—for Noah to work on the ramshackle farm of Agnes Deveraux Keller, a French WWII survivor with dementia.

Despite all Agnes has lost, she still has much to teach Noah. But the pair’s unique friendship is threatened when Tayte, Agnes’s estranged granddaughter, arrives to claim a woman whose circumstances and abilities are far different from those of the grandmother she once knew. 

Items hidden in Agnes’s attic raise painful questions about Tayte’s dead parents, steeling Tayte’s determination to save Agnes, even if it requires her to betray the very woman she came to save, and the secret her proud grandmother has guarded for seventy years.

The issue strains the fragile trust between Tayte and Noah, who now realizes Tayte is fighting her own secrets, her own dragons. Weighed down by past guilt and failures, he feels ill-equipped to help either woman, until he remembers Agnes’s lessons about courage and love. In order to save Agnes, the student must now become the teacher, helping Tayte heal—for Agnes’s sake, and for his.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HKMU014/

About the Author

L.C. Lewis (Laurie) was born and raised in rural Maryland, surrounded by history-rich Philadelphia, Washington, and Baltimore. She and her husband Tom reside in Carroll County, Maryland, where they raised their four children.

The Dragons of Alsace Farm, Laurie’s eighth published novel, was inspired by a loved one’s struggle with the dragon of dementia. Her women’s fiction novels include Unspoken (2004) and Awakening Avery (2010), written as Laurie Lewis. Using the pen name L.C. Lewis, she wrote the five volumes of her award-winning FREE MEN and DREAMERS historical fiction series, set against the backdrop of the War of 1812, America’s nearly forgotten second war of independence: Dark Sky at Dawn (2007), Twilight’s Last Gleaming (2008), Dawn’s Early Light (2009), Oh, Say Can You See? (2010), and In God is Our Trust, (2011).

Dark Sky at Dawn and Twilight’s Last Gleaming were finalists in the 2008 USA Best Books competition. Oh, Say Can You See? was a 2010 Whitney Award finalist.

Three new books are in progress. Please watch for her remake of Awakening Avery, a political suspense novel titled The Shell Game, both of which are slated for later in 2016, and a March 2017 novella, Laurie’s contribution to the multi-author “Destination Billionaire Romance” series.

Laurie loves hearing from her readers and may be contacted through her website: www.laurielclewis.com. You can also follow her on Twitter @laurielclewis or on her blog at www.laurielclewis.blogspot.com. She also enjoys interacting with book clubs. Contact her to arrange a video chat with your group.

Book Club

The back of the book contains some thought-provoking book club questions. Laurie would love for you to schedule a video conference with her if their book club chooses The Dragons of Alsace Farm as one of their selections in the next six months. You can email her at: laurielclewis@laurielclewis.com.

Giveaway

First and foremost, The Dragons of Alsace Farm is a love story, about the power of tested love, the promise of new love, and the strength of family love. Here's a love basket, with a fun date night, Agnes's favorite breakfast for the morning, and an autographed copy of the book to read on a lazy afternoon.  Always remember love.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Goodreads Giveaway

Enter here for the chance to win a paperback of The Dragons of Alsace Farm.

Tour Schedule

July 31

Bookish Orchestrations-Tour Introduction

Laurie L.C. Lewis: A View From the Other Side of the Hill-Excerpt

Writing in the Light-Excerpt

Charity's Writing Journey-Excerpt

August 1

Ruth's Real Life-Excerpt

The Overactive Imagination-Author Interview

Author Franky A Brown-Excerpt

August 2

Rachel Rossano's Words-Excerpt

Rebekah Lyn Books-Excerpt

August 3

Frances Hoelsema-Excerpt

Kandi J Wyatt, author: Where Fantasy and Reality Meet-Interview with Noah

Zerina Blossom’s Books-Excerpt

August 4

Letters from Annie Douglass Lima-Excerpt

Laurel's Leaves-Author Interview

August 5

Perpetual Gardener, Writer, and Mormon-Excerpt

Good and Clean Reviews-Excerpt

Phrey Press-Author Interview

August 6

Bookish Orchestrations-Tour Conclusion and Giveaway Announcement

 

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Cover reveal for my new novel, coming in May

This book has been such a long time coming, I'm feeling a strange mix of ecstatic and terrified to share it with you, my lovely readers. Without further ado, here's a sneak peek:

Coming May 2016

Paris, the City of Lights. To Dani Deane, it’s the Promised Land. There, her widowed mother’s depression will vanish and she will no longer fear losing her only parent, her arty New York life, or her devoted boyfriend.

But shortly before their Paris getaway, Dani’s tyrannical grandfather falls ill, pulling them to rural Pennsylvania to deal with his hoarder horror of a house. Among the piles, Dani finds disturbing truths that could make Mum completely unravel. Desperate to protect her from pain and escape to Paris, Dani hatches an plan with the flirtatious neighbor boy that only threatens the relationships she most wants to save. 

Why would God block all paths to Paris? Could real hope for healing be as close as a box tucked in the rafters?

Genre:  Contemporary YA / Christian fiction

Add it on Goodreads

I like to think of  Almost There as a companion story to Never Gone more than strictly a sequel; you don't need to read the prequel to understand it. It picks up 18 months after Never Gone, the summer after Dani's junior year.  Prepare for hose battles, a roadkill journal, toasted-marshmallow flavored kisses, and a rain-soaked rendezvous with the wrong guy. 

I will begin releasing sample chapters on Wattpad over the next few weeks. Please follow me there @LaurelGarver for more sneak peeks.  

What's new with you? 

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Five tips for diversifying your cast

Photo credit: Prawny from morguefile.com 

Last year, a handful of authors began an initiative called "We Need Diverse Books" to raise awareness about  the lack diversity in traditionally published children's books. Librarians and educators have joined them. In their mission statement, they clarify what they mean by diverse:

We recognize all diverse experiences, including (but not limited to) LGBTQIA, people of color, gender diversity, people with disabilities*, and ethnic, cultural, and religious minorities.

*We subscribe to a broad definition of disability, which includes but is not limited to physical, sensory, cognitive, intellectual, or developmental disabilities, chronic conditions, and mental illnesses (this may also include addiction). Furthermore, we subscribe to a social model of disability, which presents disability as created by barriers in the social environment, due to lack of equal access, stereotyping, and other forms of marginalization. 

(Source: http://weneeddiversebooks.org/mission-statement/)

Whether or not you agree with their assertion that the types of people listed above are underrepresented, and whether or not you like their language for describing the issue, the group certainly has statistics on their side, at least when it comes to kidlit. And you don't have to look far in our world to see the problems created when various groups misunderstand and mistrust one another. Literature can be a bridge for building cross-cultural understanding and empathy.

Perhaps you don't write kidlit. But do you write nothing but characters who resemble you in most ways? If so, it might be time to rethink that.

It's true that some communities are fairly ethnically homogeneous. But even they will naturally contain some of the  groups mentioned above. (I'd note WNDB doesn't discuss the ageist bias against elderly characters).

So how does one go about building fictional worlds that aren't Mayberry or Stepford?

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Learn what the stereotypes are

It can be easy to think we're successfully diversifying our casts by including a brainy Asian best friend or a wise wheelchair-bound mentor. But both of these characterizations are based on standing stereotypes about these groups--that Asians are naturally top scholars and that disability brings magical powers of wisdom or observation. Stereotypes can be hard to identify in our own thinking because they are ingrained expectations and ways of interpreting situations that are constantly reinforced by majority culture. They are the "beam in your own eye" that prevent you from seeing correctly (to quote from Matt 7:3).

A good place to start educating yourself is the TV Tropes "Magical Minority Person" page, which describes numerous stereotyped depictions of diverse characters often shunted into supporting roles.

Read diverse books

You very well may have to go outside your genre to find work by authors of other ethnicities, or at least to bookshops outside your neighborhood.

Listen to the cadence of books translated from other languages. Look for diverse thematic concerns. What values are rewarded and vices punished in communities unlike your own?

Expand your study

Do you find yourself drawn to particular cultures and subcultures? Read all you can about them, and seek out all their modes of creative expression. Learn all you can about historical shaping forces and how those play into a culture's self-concept and dreams for tomorrow.

Think about how what you learned could press against or defy certain stereotypes about that group. Consider what traits might marginalize a person even in that minority, and what traits would mark him/her a "winner" or leader.

Listen and ask

If you're able to get to know individuals that belong to the minority group you'd like to depict, be genuine and vulnerable. Don't treat them like lab specimens. Ask them questions you would any friend you'd want to know more deeply and be equally willing to share your own stories.

Where did you grow up? What was that like?
What did you love and hate most about your childhood?
What do you like to do for fun as a kid?
What careers did you aspire to?
Who were your heroes?
How did you fit in or stand out in your family, school, neighborhood?
What "borders" have you had to cross in your life? What has that been like?
What bugs you about mainstream media portrayals of your neighborhood?
What do you wish outsiders knew about your community?

If you develop a character based on your friend's stories, let the friend beta read before you finalize your manuscript, to ensure your depiction isn't off base.

Encamp

It's difficult to do another culture justice until you've inhabited it yourself. There's only so much that reading books, watching movies, listening to music, and even interviewing can provide. If you find you want to take the big leap and write a protagonist from a group to which you don't belong (versus a supporting character), it may be necessary to live for a time among that group. Actually walking through a neighborhood, learning its smells and flavors, feeling your heart thump at its dangers or soar at its delights--those experiences will give you the most realistic details to use in your work. Otherwise, you're likely to resort to stereotype and trope.

The people you meet and observe day after day will provide the best characterization details, the most accurate lingo for dialogue, and the most compelling backstories. Just be sure to create composites of several real people, or disguise them by changing key details (age, gender, appearance).

Have you written characters outside the cultural groups to which you belong? What tips would you add?

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Reclaim lost hours developing your emotions repertoire

Every season comes with special challenges for writers. In summer, it's often kids home from school, friends and family visiting, and time away for family vacation that can destroy your writing routine.

But what if time away from the keyboard could be as useful to your craft as the hours of "butt in chair"? The hours you spend out in the world can indeed be a creative gift to you, putting you in new places with access to new experiences. In particular, you have wonderful access to the laboratory of human emotion. You just have to pay attention.

People-watching is the best way to gain an understanding of how real people express their feelings. Observe and record, and you'll never be at a loss for how to represent your characters in your fiction-- without resorting to tired cliches.

Do this haphazardly, however, and it won't be as useful an exercise. Organization is truly key.

With these issues in mind, I created a tool that writers of any genre can use to develop their own "emotions bible" in their own authorial voice. It is based on an exercise used by method actors: observing and journaling expression, gesture, carriage, stance, motion in order to better embody it on stage.

Emotions in the Wild: A Writer's Observational Journal contains over 200 pages of guided journaling exercises to help you record your observations of how real people express thirty nine different emotions. Once completed, the journal can serve as your go-to source for creating realistic dialogue and facial and body language that is uniquely yours.  You can use it again and again on any fiction project.

Tuck the journal in your bag and make use of any and every opportunity to observe emotion, whether you're stuck in line at the grocery store, waiting for your child at swim lessons, sitting in a doctor's waiting room, or lounging on the beach or at the pool. Watch your emotional vocabulary grow, you productivity soar, and your reliance on cliches fade away,

Add it on Goodreads
Purchase the paperback from CreateSpace / Amazon (US) / Amazon (UK)

Where will summer take you? How might your writing benefit from observation research?

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Anatomy of a book: parts and their purposes

How well do you know the parts of a book and their names and functions? Below I've gathered a list of the most common elements in a printed book.

Photo credit: pschubert from morguefile.com

Front Matter

All the pages prior to the main body. Numbering is done in lowercase Roman numerals.

End papers/leaves
Blank pages, sometimes with images, at the beginning and end of a book. They usually exist to fill out a printer's signature (huge paper sheets from which book pages are cut) and give a polished look. Paperbacks are less likely than hardbacks to contain them.

Endorsements
Praise from other authors, important book reviewers, or experts on your topic often appear first. Keep in mind that readers will be likely to skip or skim, so put the most important first, and have plenty of white space on the page. Dense text on an endorsements page will be a turn off.

Half title page
In traditionally published books, it's common to have a page with the title and nothing else.

"Also by" page
A list of the author's other works typically appears on the back of the Half title.

Title page
The book title and the names of the author(s) and the publisher go on the front of this page

The back of the title page should include the copyright notice, the ISBN, the publisher’s address, the year the book was published, any disclaimers, information about the cover art and/or designer.

Cataloging in Publication information also goes here--the categories for library search engines-- for traditionally published books. Self-published books are not eligible for this service (see Library of Congress FAQs for more info). Don't try this at home, either. You can pay to have CIP data generated, but it's pricey and won't guarantee your book will make it into a library.

Dedication
Spot where the author gives special recognition to someone or something. The word "dedicated" or "dedication" need not appear. Simply "In memory of my mother" or "For Sam, who makes it all worthwhile" is often plenty.

Acknowledgements
Specific thanks to all the people who helped the author, and can sometimes cleverly incorporate the story's themes or images. Acknowledgements can also appear in the back matter, if preferred.

Table of contents
This list of the elements included in the book is more common in nonfiction than fiction. It should include pertinent front matter--such as a foreword or preface, the chapters, and all back matter.

Foreword (note spelling!)
A special introduction written by someone other than the author, that gives supportive information regarding the book. Forewords can be included in nonfiction, fiction, and poetry books.

Preface
Written by the book’s author, this contains important information related to the book topic, such as explaining the author's expertise, or research methodology. Prefaces are largely used in nonfiction.

Body

Introduction
In nonfiction, the author gives the reader more details about the book, typically a rationale for "why I wrote this book" or an informal letter to readers, highlighting the benefits of reading the book.

Prologue
In fiction, a chapter occurring outside the main narrative time frame or location, typically before the main story action picks up. Sometimes the prologue will be a fictionalized outside source, such as an imaginary newspaper clipping, TV broadcast or online article. Using part of a scene from the climax as a prologue has been done (Twilight) but will likely come off as gimmicky. Keep in mind that some readers will skip prologues, so use with caution.

Chapters
The text of the book is typically broken into parts called chapters. These might be named with a simple number (Ten, 17), the word "chapter" and a numeral or spelled out number (Chapter 23, Chapter Six), a descriptive heading ("In which the heroine uncovers a ruse"), a date (especially for diary-style fiction), a location (Chicago, Dave's house), the point-of-view character's name, or a combination of these (Chapter 6, March 21, Chicago; 15 Vanessa).

Epigraphs
Quotations from other sources that summarize the theme of a chapter can be inserted at the beginning of a chapter, or the book as a whole (usually right before the body). Beware of taking more than about 400 words from any single source--that's the UK threshold for "fair dealing," a copyright concept more strict than US law. If you use Bible verses, use several different translations (say, NIV, ESV, NASB) to ensure you don't stray out of fair use or fair dealing territory, and be sure to attribute correctly (in an appendix, and in your copyright information).

Frank Herbert's Dune used epigraphs from a fictional source written by one of his characters who is a small child in the book. In doing this, he avoids copyright issues and also signals that this person will become significant.

Scenes/sections
Chapters are composed of subsections called "scenes" in fiction and "sections" in nonfiction.

How separations between scenes are demarcated can depend on medium. In paper books, extra space is typically added. In e-books, scene breaks are often marked with centered asterisks, dashes, or even line art. Indie authors should determine what their "house style" will be and use it consistently.

Nonfiction sections usually have descriptive headings.

Epilogue
A final chapter, typically dramatized scenes, that takes place sometime after the main narrative. This might be a day or decades later. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, for example, J.K. Rowling provides a glimpse of how our favorite characters are faring 19 years after the Battle of Hogwarts.

Back Matter

All elements that appearing after the body of the book. Be sure to include them when numbering pages and constructing your table of contents.

Afterword (note spelling!)
Unlike an epilogue, an afterword is not in a character's voice, but is instead follow up information for the audience from the author. This might include an explanation of how the author got the idea for the story or a testimonial from another source.

Appendix (Appendices if more than one)
Appendices include supplementary information, such as "further reading" with recommended books, or a list of resources such as organizations and websites related to the book's topic. Maps of your fantasy world and lists of characters and their relationships (for large casts) would also appear here. Appendices might also include additional content related to the book, such as discussion questions or recipes for foods featured in the story.

Glossary
Vocabulary words and their definitions. If you coin a lot of terms in your worldbuilding, readers will appreciate a glossary. Don't forget to include pronunciations.

Bibliography
Lists the references used in writing the book. It's rare to include this in fiction. More often, fiction writers mention important research sources in their acknowledgements.

Index
An alphabetical list of significant terms found within the text and the pages where they appear. Nonfiction books usually include this element.

Author biography ("About the author")
A sentence, paragraph or even a page with information about the author. Increasingly, authors include information about how to connect on social media. Some also include a personal plea for reviews.

Sneak Peak
A sample chapter of the next book in the series, or of your next release can build audience.


Did I miss anything? Which elements do you wish authors and publishers used more often? Less often?

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