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…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Fiction, the kind accepted by children’s magazines and book publishers, relies on a careful balance of great action, strong setting and believable dialogue. Readers love dialogue. It lightens the page, making the…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Magazine writing differs from book writing in a number of ways, but one way is that you can learn so much about everything the magazine publishes from studying a sample. That’s not…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > The moment when you submit can be an interesting mix of exciting and terrifying. It’s easy to forget small details. So a good checklist can help. Before you send, make sure you…
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…
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,…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Magazine writing today can be challenging. Basically you’re throwing yourself into a highly competitive field that really doesn’t get all the respect it deserves. But magazine writing can also be incredibly rewarding.…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Talk about “platform” is pretty scary for a lot of writers. Many of us are not really all that social, so we’re not excited by the words “social media.” But really, isn’t…
Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Last week we looked as some good advice writers would give their past selves, their pre-publication self. And this week, we’ll see even more of these tidbits of advice. What kinds of…
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…
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 > 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 > 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 > 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 > 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 > 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…
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 > 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 > 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 > Here’s the thing about writing. Eventually, no matter what else you do, you’ll get stuck. Just this week, I was stuck trying to come up with a sixth book idea for a…