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 common forms of narrative nonfiction is the biography. Biographies can be found in long form novels, long-form highly illustrated books, chapter books, early readers and picture books. Picture…
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…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > If you’re interested in trying your hand at narrative nonfiction, there are options beyond massively researched full-length books. Some children’s magazines buy narrative nonfiction in the form of biographical sketches, profiles of contemporary figures, and anecdotal stories of…
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 > Melissa Stewart, writer and nonfiction evangelist, fills her Twitter feed with books and bits to help writers and buyers better understand nonfiction. She’s made nonfiction her life. And she explains that nonfiction is basically broken into two broad…
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…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Writing a publishable picture book is hard. It simply is. The competition is incredible. And your book must do so many things well. It needs to sing. It needs to speak to every reader, whether child or adult.…
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!
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > According to Dr. David Dunning, a psychology professor at Cornell, we are not good judges of our own competency. In other words, we aren’t very skilled at telling if we’re good at…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > “Everything is in the tone.”—Sherwood Anderson For a well-polished manuscript, make sure you use tone and mood effectively. Tone in fiction refers to an author’s attitude toward the characters and events in the story. The tone helps to…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Polishing a manuscript involves both big picture corrections, such as plot issues or motivation issues for your characters, and incredibly small, picky bits where you’re really bringing out the shine in each…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > “Hearing” your manuscript with a reader’s ear As you polish your manuscript, you will likely review it numerous times, looking for ways to improve the content, style, and presentation. Some experts suggest reading a hard copy in addition…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > How Polished Does It Need to Be? In the many views about the importance of polishing a manuscript, there are two opposite ends of the spectrum. First are the writers whose work…
Today we focus on ways to intensify a third-person point of view to achieve a close third person viewpoint drawing readers deeply inside a character’s POV.
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Dialogue serves a number of purposes in a book or story. It brings immediacy since dialogue takes place at a specific moment in time, thus bringing the reader into the story. It…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > What to do (and not do) in your characters’ conversations As a final check through your dialogue, a good idea is to give a scene to two friends and have them read a different character as if they…
Setting and dialogue must influence each other. Let’s look at one conversation in three different places to see how setting influences the dialogue.
Dialogue is a great way to get readers to care about your characters and eager to find out what happens next. Here are 4 tips for snappy dialogue.
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Let’s talk about the mechanics of dialogue, the nuts and bolts of putting it on the page. In order to write good dialogue that communicates clearly with the reader, it’s helpful if…
Dialogue can be an effective way to share backstory with your readers. Here’s what to do and what not to do when using dialogue to convey a character’s past.
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