Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > This is the second article in a four-part series on author platform. If you’re looking to build or strengthen a platform, you’ve come to the right place! 1: Defining Your Author Brand…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > One of the most alarming things to tell a new writer is that he or she needs platform. Most of us don’t know what that is when we’re early in our career…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > How do you build a writing platform? What is a platform for writers anyway? This topic is both broad and deep, with tentacles that will drown even the most determined author in…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > “Writers, do not wait for inspiration. You need to arm yourself and track inspiration down and mount its head over your fireplace.” – Erin Bow This quote makes me laugh. It’s…
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…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter 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…
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…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter 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…
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…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter 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…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Finding the SparkEducational publishing produces massive numbers of nonfiction books. Trade publishing, despite its heavy focus on acquiring fiction, also publishes biographies and narrative nonfiction and even nonfiction picture books in abundance.…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter 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…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > The Objects Your Character ValuesAs a small child, my daughter had a favorite teddy bear that we named “Grubby,” because he so often was. She took Grubby everywhere and learned to do…
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…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter 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…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Every story takes place somewhere. Some take place in a variety of locations. Overall, we’ve become somewhat twitchy about setting. I’ve seen so many people say they don’t really want to get…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter 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…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > All the world is a stage, and so is your story. When we think about a stage play, we normally think of it from the audience’s viewpoint and that means the brief…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter 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,…