Rob Parnell's Writing Academy Blog

I get asked this question all the time. Writers everywhere want to know what's popular, what will sell now and in the future. They think there might be some great oracle out there that can answer this question - or that maybe publishers and agents on the inside might know this information and are somehow keeping it to themselves. Would that this were true! Think about it. Five years ago could you have predicted what you are doing now? Most of us don't know where we're going to be living in five years time - and even if we think we do, events conspire to change our plans. Life is organic, some might say unreliable. Even two years ago, is there any way you could have foreseen today's news? Could you have known which celebrities or politicians were going to be in the spotlight? Or which ones had faded from view? Of course not. It doesn't work that way. The bestselling books and movies that are with us today were conceived and written AT LEAST two years...

Let's get one thing straight. A lot of people search the term 'writing style' when they're actually looking for 'writing fonts'. I know. I regularly get Google visitors who've typed in 'tattoo writing styles' or 'graffiti writing styles'. Clearly, they're not looking for 'writing style' at all but rather a collection of fonts they can refer to, copy, or learn from. 'Style' is different - more aligned to technique than anything else. There are various official writing styles - but these are more specifically ways of constructing essays or theses rather than refering to what most writers regard as 'ways of writing'. The APA style is set by the American Psychological Association and is basically a way of organizing information for reports and social science documents. Hardly of use to the average creative writer. The MLA style dictated by the Modern Language Association is favored for college essays and e...