Storytelling Exercise: Managing Our Ideas
Today’s storytelling exercise is an excerpt from my book, Story Drills: Fiction Writing Exercises, which helps beginning to intermediate storytellers develop skills in the craft of fiction writing. This exercise is designed to help you manage your writing ideas (or lack thereof). It’s called “Managing Our Ideas.” Enjoy! All the storytelling skills in the world…Read More
Creating Characters That Resonate
Today’s post is an excerpt from my book, What’s the Story? Building Blocks for Fiction Writing. This is from chapter one, “Characters.” Enjoy! Creating Characters We see ourselves in a story’s characters. We see people we know—people we love, people we hate, people we fear, people we admire, and people we want to emulate. We…Read More
How to Write a Poem
There’s no right or wrong way to write a poem. There are techniques and methods you can learn, forms and formulas you can choose, and writing exercises or poetry prompts you can use. But if anyone tries to tell you how to write a poem, take it with a grain of salt. That said, there…Read More
Homophones for Music Lovers: Turn up the Bass and Play a Chord
Homophones are words that sound alike but have different meanings. Many homophones also have different spellings, and all too often, people mix them up. The result is an onslaught of misspellings throughout the written universe. Although these mistakes are understandable, they are problematic since they are contagious. If someone sees a homophone used incorrectly or…Read More
A Notebook and a Pen
Today’s post is an excerpt from my book, Ready, Set, Write: A Guide to Creative Writing. Enjoy! These days, we writers use computers, electronic tablets, and even our smartphones for most of our creative writing. But a lot of us admit there’s still something about good, old-fashioned pen and paper that really gets creativity flowing….Read More
21 Ways to Improve Your Writing
It’s not possible to improve your writing overnight, unless you hire an expert to do it for you. People study the craft for years, decades even, and still they strive to make each piece of writing better than the last. Sure, there might be some quick tricks and shortcuts you can pick up and apply…Read More
Writing Tips: Abolish the Adverbs
“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.” ~ Stephen King In the writing world, adverbs have a bad reputation for being weak and causing unnecessary clutter. But sometimes adverbs are necessary, and other times, they liven up a sentence or strengthen a description. Today we’re going to explore adverbs and take a look at…Read More
A Messy, Liberating Guide to Journal Writing
You should see my journal. It’s a cacophony of words and images, scribbles, doodles, and scraps of ideas tucked between the pages. It’s sort of a mess, and I like it that way. I know some writers are diligent about keeping their journals pristine. The pages are crisp, the lines straight and legible, and every…Read More
Fiction Writing Prompts for Every Genre
Today I’d like to share a selection of fiction writing prompts from my book, 1200 Creative Writing Prompts, which includes 500 fiction prompts plus prompts for writing poetry and creative nonfiction. Writing prompts are ideal when you’re feeling uninspired because they provide you with ideas for your writing sessions and projects. But prompts are also…Read More
From 101 Creative Writing Exercises: Chekhov’s Gun
Today’s post is from my book, 101 Creative Writing Exercises, which is available from your favorite online bookseller in paperback or as an e-book. This is from chapter six: “Storytelling,” and it’s called “Chekhov’s Gun.” Enjoy! Chekhov’s Gun Chekhov’s Gun is a literary device in which an element is mentioned in a story and its…Read More
