Faith Beuligmann
Contest: YA Fantasy First Pages | 2nd place
Wind Weaver
August 14, 2020
Breaking Down Science Fiction To Find Your Place
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Science fiction is the marriage of science and imagination. The genre has been popular in film, television, graphic novels and fiction for young people (mostly middle grade and up). It is a…
NaNoWriMo: The Home Stretch
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Hello NaNoWriMo-ers! You are word writing warriors. The end is in sight. Don’t slow down now. It’s almost over. By the end of today, you should have 40,008 words done on your…
NaNoWriMo: Synopsis and the Sagging Middle
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Hello NaNoWriMo-ers! You are on the way. You’ve past the halfway mark of the month of November and are heading down the home stretch. How’s that for scary? (Or exciting!) By the…
NaNoWriMo: Out of the Gate, Getting Into the Zone
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Today is Tuesday, November 3rd and in the U.S.A, it’s also Election Day. But for NaNoWriMo participants, it’s the day their novel hits 5,001 words. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month…
Something Wicked, Weird, and Spooky This Way Comes
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Examples for Building a Supernatural Mystery or Paranormal Mystery Saying a mystery is about something unknown takes on a new meaning when it comes to supernatural and paranormal mysteries. Supernatural means anything…
Mystery Sidekicks
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > The sidekick, a character who supports the main character, is almost as much a part of a good mystery as the detective. The sidekick gives the detective someone to discuss the case…
Mystery Detectives
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Any fan of mysteries would be happy to tell you that mystery detectives come in all shapes and forms. Some are detectives because they want to be like Sherlock Holmes, Encyclopedia Brown,…
Follow That Clue!
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > The Clue-Theory-Test Method of Plotting Mysteries For many writers trying mystery writing for the first time, one of the things that feel the hardest is leaving clues for the reader. So let’s…
Mystery For Young Children
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Basically every book I write is an adventure story or a mystery, and many are both. By definition, a mystery involves a puzzle with someone trying to solve the puzzle. For adults,…
Writing a Holiday Romance
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > If you decide to write a holiday-themed romance, the first thing you need to do is decide if you want to self-publish it or if you want to go the traditional route.…
Love Scenes: Spicy or Sweet?
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 issues with writing romance in young adult novels lies in the question of how far to push the love scenes. Do you stop at the kiss and fade to…
Conflict Is So Romantic
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Like any strong story, romance needs conflict. Without conflict, romantic stories can be dully predictable. After all, the vast majority of romances end with the characters together. Readers are confident that will…
Open or Closed Door Sex Scenes
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > After choosing which sub-genre of romance novel you want to write, the next thing you have to decide is your heat level. In some cases like Inspirational Romance and Amish Romance, you’ll…
Characters Make the Romance
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > With romance such an important element of YA novels, it can be easy to focus all the attention on creating the main character, only to give the second romantic lead less attention…
Working the Romance Tropes
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > It’s a fine line between trope and trite. They are both common themes or ideas that have been in countless stories. A popular romance trope is enemies to lovers or opposites attract.…
Romance Writing is Serious Business
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Avid romance novel readers have made the romance genre a billion dollar industry. But romance novels have come a long way since Pamela fended off Mr. B’s sexual harassment until he proposed…
Corinne Mordaunt
Keep the Light Burning
August 28, 2020
Walking Through a Developing Story Structure
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > It all begins in your head Those of us who tend to plan our stories extensively before we write don’t pull that plan from our heads in a complete, coherent form. Just…
Funny Cat Videos—And You!
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter 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…