BPA's Blog
Author and literary agent Q&As, plus advice ranging from submissions to how to improve your craft.
Peggy Lee
Peggy manages Blue Pencil Agency’s editorial department, social media channels and blog. She completed a Master’s in Prose Fiction at the University of East Anglia, where she found a love for editing and decided to pursue a career working with words. Peggy has had stories published by Liar’s League, Every Day Fiction and Coffin Bell. She is currently working on two contemporary novels.
How to Find Your Hook
Pitching is one of the final skills you have to learn as a novelist. Many gatekeepers look for a strong 'hook' when deciding whether to give a submission serious attention, which means proving your story's worth in the cover letter, before they've read a word of the...
Ask an Agent: Amy St Johnston from Aitken Alexander
Amy St Johnston joined Aitken Alexander in 2018 and works with Clare Alexander and her clients. She is also building her own list, so we reached out to find out what she's looking to take on and hear her advice for submitting writers. What made you...
How to Write an Unlikable Protagonist
At BPA we love characters who are flawed and complex (or even evil), and there's no reason you shouldn't write an unlikable person as the central character of your novel. That said, antiheroes are hard to pull off and we often see good novels let down by protagonists...
5 Things to do when you Disagree with Feedback
Whether it's from trusted readers, a workshop group, friends, an academic tutor or a professional editor, all writers have to take on feedback. Self-editing may get you halfway, but we all have blind spots. Learning to take critique is a journey – often a messy one –...
9 Writing Prompts to Inspire a Sentence, a Scene or a Story
These days inspiration is hard to come by, so if you have time to write but the words aren't coming, here are some prompts to get you going. What you write could turn into a short story, a scene in your novel, a striking sentence or – nothing. It might remain an...
Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott: The Writer’s Palette
Who better than Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott, author of the masterful Swan Song, to chat to our BPA Long Writing Weekend crew about the writer's palette? Kelleigh opened her session with a quote from writer Truman Capote, who inspired her fictionalised debut novel....
Agent Research: How to Create your Submission List
Once you've decided your novel is ready to submit to literary agents, you'll probably want to get going right away, but it's important to take your time deciding who to submit to. It's often advised to create a list of about ten agents, submit to five, wait a couple...
Upmarket? Book Club? Literary? How to Describe Novels that Don’t Fit Into a Genre
If you're writing contemporary fiction that doesn't fit neatly into a genre such as crime, fantasy, romance, etc. it can be hard to know how to describe it in a cover letter. There are a lot of terms out there: general fiction, book club fiction, literary, upmarket,...
5 Exercises to Try Before Writing Your Novel
Once you have drafted your novel and and received feedback on it, there are bound to be issues that you wish you'd thought about more before you began. Of course, so much of a story develops in the process of writing it, but there are exercises worth doing before you...
Agent Submissions: Nelle Andrew’s Insider Advice
As a writer fairly close to submitting my first novel to literary agents, I was delighted to attend BPA's session with Nelle Andrew from Rachel Mills Literary. Nelle secured a three-book deal for Neil Daws, who was highly commended in the 2019 Blue Pencil First Novel...
Events, Workshops, Online Courses?
Sign up to our mailing list to receive helpful advice and discounts
Workshops, Events & Online Tutorials
Writers resources
Writing time, workshopping, publishing talk, inspiration, connection, and more…