 Category :: Writing Articles |
Author :: Marg McAlister  |
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| Article Title :: Dig Deeper to Reveal Character |
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| He ran up the steps and knocked on the door. After a few moments, it was opened by a woman with dark curly hair and a strained expression.
What you've just read are two simple sentences showing a common situation. So common that the author very probably has not given a thought as to whether her words reflect what really happened.She wants her character to pay a visit to someone; she wants him to knock on the door; she wants someone to open the door. So that's what she writes.Sometimes, this is exactly what you need - a fast, simple transition to get you from one scene to the next. But sometimes, by not thinking about what other options you ha (read full article) |
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| Category :: Writing Articles |
Author :: Marg McAlister |
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| Article Title :: Create the Writing Life You Want |
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| Ah, writing. For those of us who love to play with words, it's like standing in front of a smorgasbord, agonising over which delicacies to try. You can potter about with your writing as a thoroughly delightful hobby - writing wedding speeches, penning dreadful doggerel for people's birthdays, or writing stories to entertain your children. Or you can work at it, hour after hour, determined that your book is going to be the next bestseller. You can choose the writing life that's perfect for you now, then change direction later, as your circumstances change and your experience grows.HOBBY OR CAREER?I'm going to work on an assumption here - that you actually like writing. (read full article) |
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| Category :: Writing Articles |
Author :: Marg McAlister |
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| Article Title :: A Writer's Personal Cheer Squad |
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| We all need a cheer squad.We all need people to say 'Good on you!'; 'Way to go!'; 'You've done a great job'; 'You're really on the way.'We need people to say 'Don't worry, this is just a temporary setback'; or 'Of course you can do it' when we encounter obstacles. (Hey, you think nothing of putting plenty of hurdles in your character's way-why should you get through unscathed?)Writers tend to get depressed and give up when nobody appears to care whether they write or whether they don't. Sure, it's really up to us if we feel that urge to create-in one way, we shouldn't have to rely on the support or approval of others. But let's get real. Most of us do care. We feel so (read full article) |
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| Category :: Writing Articles |
Author :: Marg McAlister |
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| Article Title :: Plotting By Personality - Work With Your Natural Instincts |
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| What's the best way to plot?Quick answer: the best way to plot is whatever works best for you. After all, we're all different. Interview any group of a dozen writers and you'll find they all have different times of the day when they're alert; different belief systems about the world; different preferences in food and films. So why on earth would we all agree on the best way to plot a story?Personality TypesTo find out the best way of plotting for you, first (a) think about your usual approach to problems then (b) try a few different methods. It's not certain that the 'best' way for you will dovetail with your personality type, but it's likely. If we work on the (read full article) |
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| Category :: Writing Articles |
Author :: Kirk Bannerman |
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| Article Title :: You Should Seriously Consider Making Money With Your Words |
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| Sometimes when I am communicating with other webmasters and I
bring up the subject of writing articles, I often get a response
like "I'd rather have a root canal, I just can't write", or "my
spelling is horrible and my grammar is not much better". In my
view, the first excuse is just a matter of attitude. The latter
excuse falls on deaf ears because the major word processing
programs have good spelling and grammar checking capabilities.We're not talking about something that would qualify for the
Pulitzer prize in literature, just articles dealing with a topic
that may be of interest to a group of people that also may
happen to have an interest in your particular business
p (read full article) |
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| Category :: Writing Articles |
Author :: Christopher Knight |
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| Article Title :: Publisher Ethics For Reprint-able Articles |
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| Let’s Discuss Publisher Ethics:If you are an ezine publisher or webmaster that likes to use supplemental content from the many free articles available for free reprints on the Internet, this article may save you from a very expensive copyright infringement lawsuit. Stealing articles by violating the posted reprint rights is copyright infringement theft. Read on…Article Reprints Universal Law #1Don’t assume that you can reprint any article at any time without checking the publicly posted terms of service for reprint rights. If a website does not post its reprint rights policy, you must assume that you do not have permission to reprint the content (read full article) |
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| Category :: Writing Articles |
Author :: Marg McAlister |
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| Article Title :: Character Motivation - Always Ask WHY |
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| For many years, I’ve been a tutor for students undertaking courses in writing romance, crime or children’s stories. In that time, I’ve marked thousands of assignments. I’ve seen hundreds of plots, thousands of scenes, millions of words. And if I had to give writers one piece of advice after seeing all those millions of words, it would be this: always ask ‘WHY?’Why?Because I’ve seen too many characters forced into ridiculous situations by a careless author. I’ve seen potentially good plots twisted completely out of shape - because the writer finds it easier to force characters to do dumb things than to sit down and come up with a stronger plot.Believe m (read full article) |
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| Category :: Writing Articles |
Author :: Marg McAlister |
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| Article Title :: Scenes and Structure |
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| Beginning writers often tend to think of a book as a series of chapters. It's actually more useful to regard it as a series of linked scenes. Why? Because it makes it a lot easier to control the pace of your story.'Pace' may be described as the forward movement of your story. Sometimes it will move at a slower pace than at other times. What you need to aim for is a story that moves along fast enough to maintain reader interest, but not at such breakneck speed that the reader doesn't have time to get to know the characters or assimilate the plot. Nor do you want your story to slow down too much. That can lead to your reader closing the book. (If that reader happens to be the editor (read full article) |
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| Category :: Writing Articles |
Author :: Marg McAlister |
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| Article Title :: Writing HI-LO Material (High Interest, Low Ability) for Slow Readers |
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| To write books for readers at an elementary reading level (for either adults or children) you start off exactly the same way as you do any other book: you work out a strong plot and people it with interesting characters.Your primary concerns:
To write a story that will seize the interest of the reader immediately (reluctant or emergent readers aren’t going to waste time on a story that doesn’t look interesting)To try to stick to one idea per sentence. If the reader is plodding along trying to decode text, the overall sense of a sentence will be lost if it contains embedded clauses, lots of commas, and so on. Keep sentences short.To choose p (read full article) |
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| Category :: Writing Articles |
Author :: Marg McAlister |
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| Article Title :: Common Writing Mistakes - Are These Holding You Back From Writing Success? |
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| During the years that I’ve been teaching writing and participating in writers’ critique sessions, I’ve seen some real talent. There are writers who produce such sparkling prose that you know publication is only a matter of time.There are others who have wonderful ideas, terrific plots and lively characters—but who may never see their work in print. The reason? They are making one or more writing mistakes that will cause an editor to toss their writing aside. Often, when these mistakes are brought to the writer’s attention, she makes comments like ‘I can’t believe I didn’t pick that up!’ or ‘Oh no, I feel so stupid’.It’s so easy to see those mistakes w (read full article) |
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