Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Some writers hesitate to talk about plot because they believe it equates to preplanning their stories. For the organic or seat-of-the-pants writer, pre-planning simply doesn’t work for the way story unfolds in…
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 hardest parts of creating a strong plot that grabs the reader is knowing where to start. If you start too soon, you risk boring the reader with a lot…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Many writers struggle early in their writing journal when they try to sort out the difference between plot and theme. In fact, the two work in tandem to create a story but…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Because many of the books I write are created based on specs crafted by the publisher, I sometimes have to write about places I’ve never visited. This can make it difficult to…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > During this month of exploring the topic of world building, it seems appropriate to talk about the world building we’ve all been doing in real life during this pandemic. Just as when…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > For movies and television shows, a huge amount of time is put into set dressing, adding all the tiny details that make the world you see on the screen feel real. Set…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Worldbuilding isn’t just for fantasy writers. Every character lives somewhere and travels through the world. When you think about the floor plan for a character’s home or school, you’re worldbuilding. When you…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Writing is both a craft, which is learned and honed over time, and an art, which is unique and adds to our collective culture. And within the realm of writing, we generally…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > For the last couple weeks, we’ve looked at the value of writing poetry simply to write it with no concern toward publication. But as writers, most of us do want to be…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Poetry, like any art form, is improved with practice. The more you do it, the better you’ll become at it. But there is something very special about poetry: the more you practice…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > 6 Hot Tips Finding a market for poetry can be tough. It’s not that children don’t enjoy poetry. In fact, many young children love verse. The even meter and the rhyme make…
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…
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 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…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter 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…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter 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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > For each scene of your story, you need to make two choices. First, what will be exchanged between characters? This is the dialogue half of the scene. The second? Decide where the…