Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > The right way to add backstory to your dialogue In any piece of fiction, every word must count. And dialogue should do many things at once to be effective. Dialogue needs to serve a purpose, such as moving…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Much of the humor in the books I write, both the children’s books and the adult mysteries, involve the dialogue. Because dialogue reveals character, it’s a perfect opportunity for the characters to…
122: Get Tense: The Plot Thickens
October 26, 2018
Quality research is vital whether you focus on books, articles, short stories, or novels. Enjoy these research tips from Joan Broerman and Marie-Therese Miller.
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Making your writing more distinctive. As experienced writers know, revising involves more than changing word counts, fixing punctuation, or checking for accuracy. Revision is also the time —think “opportunity”—to make our writing more vibrant, meaningful, and distinctive. Fine-tuning…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Verbs are the powerhouse of the sentence. Because of that, understanding how verbs work will help you tremendously in the revision process. It’s only by knowing what verbs are all about that…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > A checklist for hooking your reader. As the saying goes, we have one chance to make a first impression, and it’s the same with writing. Editors, agents, and readers tend to cast aside stories with weak beginnings. It’s…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Writers tend to have trouble holding onto a positive self-image. We toil alone, usually with little or no cheering section. In fact, our writing can be seen as being a resented competitor…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Tips for getting closer to yes! Editors are busy, often juggling multiple duties. That means it’s important to grab them with a quick, precise query letter. Learn what works and what doesn’t. Learn how to query even if…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > One absolute need a fiction writer must have to create material for magazines is the ability to write to extremely short word counts. As this is also true of picture book writers,…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Targeted submissions can lead to success. Before you even start to query a publication or an agent, it’s important to do research on what they’ve already written, their style and the person you need to sell your work…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > I recently asked a group of published writers for examples of advice they would give their unpublished selves, looking for insight into the things that might speed up our writing journey. As…
Facebook 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 a reminder to open my eyes and…
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…
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.…
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,…