Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Writing never happens in a vacuum. It’s always something we’re throwing into the stewpot of life, hoping that the writing isn’t overwhelmed by the other ingredients. But in order for that to…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > “For sale: baby shoes, never used.”* That gets an immediate reaction from me. It implies sadness, loss, grief in only six words. We want our readers to react emotionally to our writing as well. But where do we…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Sometimes the real world inspires us to write. When that happens, we often take real life and twist it, turn it, plump it up, pare it down, and patch it with fiction…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Ever read a story that felt unrealistic? I sure have. And I’ve seen it too many times to count in TV shows and movies. For example, the unconscious patient with the hospital bed rails down. Right. I’m sure…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > In real life you can find constant fuel for your writer’s imagination. I’ve written articles, essays, and books triggered by things I’ve seen on television or read in magazines. I’ve used my…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > The old adage “write what you know” definitely has value, especially when you use places you’ve experienced. Lived in a dry climate? You know the feel of grit blown into your eye and the scent of freshly rain-dampened…
Nonfiction is a deep market, popular with readers, and well worth considering. Today we chat about what it takes to be successful in nonfiction for kids.
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > With all the competition from Kindle Unlimited, self-published books, and traditional publishing’s blitz of new releases and re-releases, getting and keeping a reader’s attention has gotten difficult. You need to entice the reader from the very first line,…
Using props in your setting can give your character interesting things to do and what your character chooses to do will tell the reader about their personality.
Write a setting so integral you can enhance your characters’ experiences, drive home your theme and mirror the characters’ journey through the novel.
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > All stories are told by someone. Sometimes it’s a chorus of voices as the writer dips into the consciousness of more than one character, revealing their thoughts. More often it’s told by…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Is your pacing too slow? Need to pull out your writer tools to increase story pacing? This is Part II of my “editing description to move the story forward” article. Part I focused specifically on scene imagery. This…
Lengthy descriptions of setting can feel slow and gratuitous, but we mustn’t throw away this essential, tool. Let’s talk about how to do setting well.
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > If you’re looking to increase the tension and keep readers turning the pages, become a master of story imagery. We’re told to have sensory details, and imagery descriptions to create a well developed setting. But imagery runs the…
Scenes are the building blocks of the story. A scene is simply the action and dialogue that takes place at a specific location in a specific time in the story.
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Having anxiety about creating a book marketing plan? I did, and I’m a marketer. Going through that period of freak-out on my own novel project helped me understand, for the first time, how creating a marketing plan could…
Here is the thing about writing. Eventually, no matter what else you do, you’ll get stuck. It’s uncomfortable and scary but here’s what you do to move past it.
Here are the top 3 sources of writer’s block and how to bust right past them from guest blogger Kristin J. Dawson. Read on for tools to help you right now!
Many writers struggle with plot. Plot has to mix and blend characters, theme, premise, and more. So, let’s break down the essentials of plot.
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > We spend months, even years, weaving characters and conflicts into a story. We cut, tweak, and rearrange. Yet if someone asks what our story is about, we might be dumbstruck. “It’s about a woman who inherits a cosmetic…
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