(Beth Turnage Blog) From time to time at Fantasy Writer dot org we have submission challenges were we challenge each other to submit en massé to one publication to see how we fare. At Christmas, we participate in the Weird Christmas Flash Fiction Contest,where Craig, the owner of the site, chooses a few winners and… Continue reading A Very Special FWO Weird #Christmas
(Beth Turnage Blog) Christmas arrived in July when Chris Banks of Pro-Writing Aid made this announcement in their monthly email: Beta Testers Needed for our New GoogleDocs Add-On We are thrilled to introduce our shiny new GoogleDocs add-on! Now you will have access to the full ProWritingAid editor right within GoogleDocs. It’s brand new, however,… Continue reading The #Writers Craft: One Big Step for #ProWritingAid: One Giant Leap for Writerkind
What are the possible factors that lessens the lexical density in writing?? A question in a comment? Yes! I was so tickled that I decided to devote an entire blog post to it. And I won’t just tell you. I’ll show you, and to do so I’ll pick on my of my favorite authors Kevin… Continue reading Ooh! A Question about Lexical Density
Writing is hard. Difficult. Okay, it’s the kick in your stomach when you are working like a demon to scrape the words out of your dissolute soul.The words refuse to arrive like the A-list celebrities you invited to your party. Your characters snottily refuse to talk to you, your descriptions fall flatter than gluten-free pancakes,… Continue reading The Craft of #Writing: Brain Secrets of Lexical Density
Writers are advised to write character studies or “interview” their characters. How do you interview an imaginary character? Here to help you is my process. Beth: Hello, new guy. Welcome to my head. Have a seat and get comfortable. NG: [looks around] Gee. It looks crowded in here. Beth: Yeah. I write a lot. Some… Continue reading #Writerslife: Interview with a character
The newest kidz on the block are Twitter pitch events where writers pitch their books in 140 characters or less to catch the attention of agents and publishers. If interested in reading more the agents and publishers like your pitch which is an invitation to query them. Yes. You must go through the query process.… Continue reading #Writing Arts: Master Your Tweet Pitch
Pro-Writing Aid, an online program that analyzes your writing and gives you recommendations to improve it.As I was looking at a report on a piece it gave the number of adverbs and recommended that I remove three. I must have missed this before but I do tend to use the old editor, instead of the… Continue reading The Craft of #Writing: Beware the Adverb Nazis.
You’ve sweated, plotted and struck the nubs of your fingers into your keyboard enough times to wear indentations into the keys. The first draft is in your hands. What do you do now? You fix it. Even best selling authors have to repair their story structure. Kevin Hearn gives a nice accounting about the process… Continue reading The Art of #Writing–Audit Your Novel’s #StoryStructure
You’ve plotted or pants your way through your novel, spent long months of taking your hero or heroine from there to back again, and then you read it. And die a little inside. Because even though you’ve created engaging characters, put them in gut twisting situations, and gave them a resolution that makes you weep,… Continue reading The Art of #Writing: #Plotting and #Pacing Using #Scrivener