Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > The covenant is the pact writers make with readers, the promise to deliver a riveting story with unforgettable characters and an ingeniously clever plot. The author also promises to tell the story in a smooth, logical, and easy…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Some paranormal enthusiasts believe that a pyramid, simply by virtue of its shape, can preserve food, and enhance meditation and psychic talents. Others believe the Giza pyramids are a giant celestial generator that could power the world if…
Writing structure is the way the article or story is organized, the way the author puts the pieces together. Readers usually don’t notice writing structure. As a writer, that’s the way you want to keep it.
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > “Wit ought to be a glorious treat, like caviar; never spread it about like marmalade.” — Noel Coward, English actor, playwright and composer Bringing humor into your writing is more than inserting a series of jokes. Here are…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > I know. There are days we want to throw our television or computer or phone out the window. Days where getting dressed up is putting on a clean pair of sweatpants. Where breakfast can just as easily be…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > You’ve been on a roll with your project—the funny bits are amusing you to no end and your first reader thinks you’re hilarious. You’re a comedic genius. Nothing can go wrong now—not when things are flowing like this.…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Get together with family and old friends and there usually comes a time when someone will tell a tale about a shared experience. The anticipation builds until the crowd is in hysterics—often before the story is even finished.…
In part 3 of our Worldbuilding series, discover 9 mistakes to avoid as you build and populate the world of your novel. Don’t miss these valuable tips!
Welcome to part 2 of our Worldbuilding series where dig even deeper into your new world and what it should include and what you can leave out.
Worldbuilding is usually associated with speculative fiction writers, but even historical, memoir, and romance authors must create a world for their characters.
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > My hands are cracking from washing them so often these days. Yours too? How about, in addition to tending to your hands with soap and water, writing a poem to and for and about them, those prehensile and…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > The architect Suchi Reddy said, “We build our lives from our bodies. Then we build the next layer and the next layer—our home, our towns, our cities, our villages, our world.” Do you see your body that way,…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > List poems have an off-hand quality, as though they’re not even poems but casual jottings like a grocery or birthday list. That makes them particularly accessible and welcoming for readers to enter, and their unassuming quality keeps them…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > It’s National Poetry Month, and with the chaos of coronavirus that’s unsettled us and our need to stay as close to home as possible, now, more than ever, is the perfect time to delve into poetry for the…
Narrative nonfiction writers need to describe people, places, objects, and events in imaginative but also accurate ways. Enter imagery. Follow these 3 tips.
The content of your piece is the what of your writing. How you say it is the voice. Time to talk about how to develop your author voice in your work.
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.” Those familiar opening lines from Charles Dickens’ novel David Copperfield are…
IFW Instructor Victoria Sherrow shares how to effectively use quotes from historical figures and experts when writing narrative nonfiction novels and articles.
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > “Just the facts, ma’am.” These oft-repeated words are associated with Sergeant Joe Friday, a character in the 1950s TV police drama “Dragnet.” Friday’s actual words were “All we want are the facts,” but the point remains: Investigators need…
Verbs play a key role in building effective sentences, so pay close attention to them as you revise and polish. These 7 writing tips will make your story shine!
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