Clik here to view.
5 Things To Do In Your First 3 Paragraphs
A frog on a hosta leaf - which is more green? Your first three paragraphs need to arrest and intrigue your reader.1. Engage the senses. You don’t have to hit every sensory stop – but it sure helps....
View ArticleClik here to view.
3 Strategies for Snaring the Senses
Use your moments to perceive what's around you in terms other than the visual, measuring warmth and smoothness and smell.Engaging the senses, particularly the non-visual ones, is often key to creating...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Foreshadowing and Establishing Conflict
Tiptree's beginnings always pack a punch, signaling the conflict of the story without being overly overt about the strategy.In an earlier post I mentioned establishing the story’s conflict as something...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Active Verbs
Pursue active verbs in your writing. Active verbs slice to the heart of a sentence’s meaning, inject action, make prose dance with precise control. Active verbs cajole, captivate, charm, and compel....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Story Prompt #1
Here’s your challenge – write either a beginning or ending inspired by this image that invokes at least three senses – and doesn’t take place in a museum. Feel free to share in the comments!
View ArticleClik here to view.
Clik here to view.
Story Prompt #3
The time has come, the Walrus said, to speak of many things. Here’s your story prompt for the day. What if the creature depicted in this picture were sentient? Someone asked me about the pictures I use...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ten Impulses Towards Flash, Part I
Tell a familiar story from the point of view of a character who usually doesn't get to speak, like the mother bear in Goldilocks and the Three Bears.I talked yesterday about flash fiction, what it is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Notes From Michael Stackpole’s “How To Write a Novel in 21 Days”
Michael StackpoleThese are my notes from the presentation at MidSouthCon 30, 2012m which was great. I suggest taking it from Michael rather than using these notes, which are a poor substitute at best....
View Article
