{Originally published at lisaakramer.com} I won’t deny it. I had this fantasy that I would wake up sometime during the month of December to discover that I had become an overnight best-selling author sensation. Of course that is pure fantasy in a world where hundreds of thousands of new books are published daily; the chances…
Category: on prose writing
Focusing Your Flash Fiction
By T.K. Young of http://www.flashfictionblog.com Flash fiction is all about brevity. So if you want to write good flash fiction, focus is the critical skill for getting your message across in a format that forces you to use as few words as possible. But there are three big pitfalls that can lead to unfocused writing: Lack…
Stuck? Try Writing Poetry
It’s been a while since I’ve posted any new writing. There is a reason for that: busy, busy, busy relaunching my first book under my own name, busy revising the sequel so it might be ready in the new year, and well, Life keeps happening. And another thing: being in this writing group of mine has really…
Novel Writing: Enrichment of Real Research
By Mark Fine of http://finewrites.blogspot.com/p/main-page.html In writing and researching my historical novel The Zebra Affaire, I had the privilege of viewing many wild creatures in their natural habitats. Being in the bush, tracking game (with camera, and not firearm) is not a bookish, academic pursuit. The composite of the senses are vital to telling your story: the wretched…
Characterization and the Car Crash
By Ken Elkes of http://kenelkes.wordpress.com Some musings on writing. Let’s start with three examples: 1. I was in a road traffic accident the other day. I didn’t suffer any injuries, though my car may not be repairable. Unfortunately it was my birthday. 2. I had an interesting birthday. Got into a car crash on the motorway. Not a scratch on me…
A Few Choice Words
By David Kent of http://writerinthemountains.blogspot.com What’s the difference between ordinary writing and extraordinary literature? Word choice. That is not some editorial decree to run out and buy a new thesaurus (although if you don’t own J. I. Rodale’s Synonym Finder, you should go get it), there is a lot more to word choice than a…
Writing Your Own Writing Prompts
By Jennifer Dunn of http://coffeeandacloseddoor.blogspot.com Yesterday I wrote about why I’ve decided to make my own writing prompts, and I described how I planned to do this. You can find out all about it right here.For a few days prior to posting yesterday, I’d been trying out my method with pretty decent success, but I wasn’t…
Flash Fiction: As Old as Aesop's Fables
by Leanne Radojkovich of http://www.leanneradojkovich.com Very short stories are as old as Aesop’s fables. Jorge Luis Borges, Kate Chopin and Anton Chekov (who said “I can speak briefly on long subjects”) have embraced the form. Ernest Hemingway has 18 very short stories in his book In Our Time which might today be called flash, as might Franz Kafka’s Parables and…
“If it Sounds Like Writing, Rewrite it”
Carol Cassara of http://carolcassara.com “Worship of Writers”: a phrase on wrapping paper I saw while in London, and one I think is what authors finally are, collectively. I wasn’t sure how I would use the photo I took of this wrapping paper: Wrapping paper I saw in London Then I ran across some of the very best writing tips ever.…
Loosening the Screws on Too-Tight Writing
Whilst editing more of the never-ending manuscript last night, I became aware that some of my writing was tight. As tight as a publisher’s wallet in fact. I can clearly discern which sections I wrote during free-wheeling, word-flowing time off when I spent a couple of hours jotting down stream-of-consciousness, vaguely-related meanderings, which eventually morphed…
The Creative Process: Thumbnail Sketches and Napkin Notes
By Amy Duncan A few weeks ago, I posed these questions on Facebook: Here are a few questions for my creative friends (writers, musicians, composers, artists, photographers, etc.): What is your creative process? How do you approach your work, day by day? What are your work habits? Your frustrations (if any!)? Feel free to be…
Writing: How to Get Story Ideas...
By J.R. Frontera of http://jrfrontera.wordpress.com …otherwise known as: How To Tap Into the Elusive “Everywhere.” If you are like most yet-to-be-published writers, you attempt to learn all you can from the successful career authors any chance you get. This often includes reading magazine articles, interviews, and online articles about them, and sometimes even traveling to…