Well, it’s the end of May and it’s time for me to blog about my monthly submissions. I’m proud to say I submitted four manuscripts this month. One of them was a picture book submission. If I submit 5 manuscripts a month until the end of December I will have successfully met my goal of 52 submissions! Stay tuned to see if I can stick to this schedule. Read Full Story
When you first sit down to write, you might ask yourself where do I start? Do I start with a plot? Or a character or a title?
When you build a house, there are blueprints you have to follow step by step. You can’t build the roof before you dig the basement.
Some writers start with outlines (like blueprints for a house). They set it up and follow it step by step. Some writers don’t use outlines(I’m one of those writers).
That’s best part about writing is that there’s more than one way... Read Full Story
The revision stage isn’t as much fun as the creation stage. So, unless you’re trying to get your work published, don’t worry about it too much. If you’re just writing for yourself for fun, it doesn’t have to be perfect.
I write my scenes out of order. I write them as I’m inspired, then during the revision stage, I put them in the right order. That’s what’s so great about computers, you can just highlight the scene and move it to another part of your manuscript. When I was writing a novel, I... Read Full Story
What I like most about writing is that sometimes there really aren’t any “rules.”
There are grammar rules, your story also needs conflict and sequential scenes so the story makes sense. But none of those things have to be done until the revision stage which I’ll talk about in the next post. In this post, I want to talk about how there are no rules. When you’re “creating” your story, you can do whatever you want. In fact, the scenes don’t even need to go in order. You can take care of all... Read Full Story
Knowing how your character feels in situations is what’s important in a story. Let’s say your character meets a secondary character. Let’s call the main character, Sally, and the secondary character, Jane. In the opening scene, Jane is standing by her locker, and Sally, who is just coming into school, sees her. What is their relationship? Are they best friends or rivals? Does Sally hate Jane or visa versa? Are they trying out for the same part in the school play? Maybe Jane wants the part so... Read Full Story
The best way to make characters real is to come up with little details as well as big details. The character’s favorite food or favorite color might not seem important to you at first because there might not be any scenes in the story where the character is eating. But there could be a scene where the character says. “If I wasn’t on a diet, I’d get a hot fudge sundae.” Without knowing that little bit of information, you wouldn’t know which food to put in that line. This shows the reader a... Read Full Story
Another way of creating characters is basing them on real people, family, or friends. Be careful when doing this. If you ask permission and they say it’s okay, then go ahead and write about them. The best thing to do is create an entirely fictitious character with a characteristic you like about someone.
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One of my favorite parts of writing a story is developing the characters. I get to know my characters so well, that they become my best friends. I even dream about them.
I know writer’s who have based characters on themselves. I don’t do this mostly because I don’t think anyone would want to read about me. What I think is fun is creating a character I’d like to be and putting myself in her place in a story. Pretending I’m her as I write the story and that I’m living the adventure... Read Full Story
Conflicts: Adjusting to a new school, trying to catch a thief, an argument with your best friend.
For example: “Places to Go, People To See”
Stephanie wants to keep Molly with all her heart, but Molly already has an owner. That’s a conflict.
In a mystery story, the detective is trying to catch a thief, but the thief is leaving clues behind that leads the detective in another direction. That’s a conflict.
There is always conflict(s) or obstacle(s) in a story to make it more exciting.
The... Read Full Story
