5-Step Secret To Great Fiction by Suzanne Harrison Stephen King says he starts his novels with a "What if?" question. What if a woman and child are trapped in a car by a rabid dog? What if a family pet buried in a Pet Semetary came back to life? I have also heard many other bestselling novelist such as Jodi Picoult, Janet Evanovich and Nicolas Evans lay claim to the same thing. And I have heard others say they just saw an image in their mind, or had a persistent sentence knocking on the inside of their brains, and they just followed that to where it lead them. And while their insight and tutelage is invaluable, when I was a budding writer it left me with another question. What's next? It's all good and fine to have a starting point. So in answer to the "What next?" Step One: Desire It is essential that your main character want something. This "desire line" is the golden thread that will run through your story. For example, in a love story, the object of desire is the beloved. Step Two: Conflict or Opposition
- StumbleUpon A Thoughtful Look at Men and Women SHE DRIVES FOR A RELATIONSHIP. HE'S LOST IN THE TRANSMISSION By DAVE BARRY CONTRARY to what many women believe, it's fairly easy to develop a long-term, stable, intimate, and mutually fulfilling relationship with a guy. Of course this guy has to be a Labrador retriever. With human guys, it's extremely difficult. Neither the Billionaire nor the Tramp: Economics in Speculative Fiction by Jeremy L. C. Jones I sat at a table full of professors and tried to explain the idea of world-building. This was five years ago. Jeff VanderMeer and I (along with about a dozen others) were scrambling to put the final touches on Shared Worlds, a writing and world-building camp for teenagers at South Carolina's Wofford College. There was a math professor, an English professor, a few historians, and a mix of others from a mysterious world I think of as "The Sciences." I babbled on, trying to figure out how to bridge the "lingo" gap and get everyone to understand. Of course, I didn't really need to bridge anything. Then an Associate Professor of Accounting and Finance named Dr. "You should have a class on economics at Shared Worlds," he said. My first thought, I am ashamed to say, was, Eew! "Economics!" My expression, I'm sure, was somewhere between blank and horrified. "Really," he assured me, "economics. Swicegood would later explain, "Economics is about exchange and incentives." This went on for a while. N.
50 Life Secrets and Tips Memorize something everyday.Not only will this leave your brain sharp and your memory functioning, you will also have a huge library of quotes to bust out at any moment. Poetry, sayings and philosophies are your best options.Constantly try to reduce your attachment to possessions.Those who are heavy-set with material desires will have a lot of trouble when their things are taken away from them or lost. Possessions do end up owning you, not the other way around. Become a person of minimal needs and you will be much more content.Develop an endless curiosity about this world.Become an explorer and view the world as your jungle. Stop and observe all of the little things as completely unique events. Try new things. Read “Zen and the Art of Happiness” by Chris Prentiss.This book will give you the knowledge and instruction to be happy at all times regardless of the circumstances.
100 Exquisite Adjectives By Mark Nichol Adjectives — descriptive words that modify nouns — often come under fire for their cluttering quality, but often it’s quality, not quantity, that is the issue. Plenty of tired adjectives are available to spoil a good sentence, but when you find just the right word for the job, enrichment ensues. Practice precision when you select words. Subscribe to Receive our Articles and Exercises via Email You will improve your English in only 5 minutes per day, guaranteed! 21 Responses to “100 Exquisite Adjectives” Rebecca Fantastic list! Online Drawing Course - Drawing on the Right Side of the brain
25 Things Writers Should Stop Doing I read this cool article last week — “30 Things To Stop Doing To Yourself” — and I thought, hey, heeeey, that’s interesting. Writers might could use their own version of that. So, I started to cobble one together. And, of course, as most of these writing-related posts become, it ended up that for the most part I’m sitting here in the blog yelling at myself first and foremost. That is, then, how you should read this: me, yelling at me. If you take away something from it, though? Then go forth and kick your writing year in the teeth. Onto the list. 1. Right here is your story. 2. Momentum is everything. 3. You have a voice. 4. Worry is some useless shit. 5. The rise of self-publishing has seen a comparative surge forward in quantity. 6. I said “stop hurrying,” not “stand still and fall asleep.” 7. It’s not going to get any easier, and why should it? 8. 9. The mind is the writer’s best weapon. 10. 11. 12. Writers are often ashamed at who they are and what they do. 13. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 14.
Learn Chinese with free online lessons 36 Writing Essays by Chuck Palahniuk 1: Establishing Your Authority Chuck teaches two principal methods for building a narrative voice your readers will believe in. Discover the Heart Method and the Head Method and how to employ each to greatest effect. 2: Developing a Theme At the core of Minimalism is focusing any piece of writing to support one or two major themes. 3: Using “On-The-Body” Physical Sensation Great writing must reach both the mind and the heart of your reader, but to effectively suspend reality in favor of the fictional world, you must communicate on a physical level, as well. 4: Submerging the “I” First-person narration, for all its immediacy and power, becomes a liability if your reader can't identify with your narrator. 5: Nuts and Bolts: Hiding a Gun Sometimes called "plants and payoffs" in the language of screenwriters, Hiding a Gun is an essential skill to the writer's arsenal that university writing courses almost never touch upon. 6: Nuts and Bolts: “Thought” Verbs 8: Nuts and Bolts: Using Choruses
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