All year, you’ve been learning how to hone new skills that you can apply to your stories. Ready to see how you’ve improved? This contest gives you the opportunity to have professional writers take a look at the first five pages of your story–the pages that will hook a reader’s interest. We’ll give you positive […]
Are You Polishing Your Contest Entry?
March 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment
You have about a month to brush up your first five pages for entry in our second annual NOVELWritingSite Writing Contest! Use the archive lessons to help you! More details next week!
Writing Lesson 2.27 – Begin with the End in Mind
March 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Some people seem to think that to tell a story, you just start talking and to write a story, you just start writing. Simply string two or more words together to make a sentence and repeat until you have a book, right? If you’ve tried your hand at writing, you know it’s not that simple. […]
Writing Lesson 2.24 – There’s, um, like, this really important thing you should know
March 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Filler words are distracting…not to mention annoying. In speech, they crop up when we don’t know quite how to communicate what we’re trying to say. Filler words crop up in writing for the same reason and have the same effect. Annoying distractions, they muddy the message and communicate almost nothing. Exercise: Look for these common […]
Writing Lesson 2.21 – Get Into Character
February 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Experimenting with First Person Point of View I’ve noticed lately how many best-sellers are written in 1st person point of view–especially young adult novels. When a story is written in 1st person, the author writes as if they are the main character, telling the story in their own words. (As opposed to 3rd person, where […]