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How to write a scene: Nailing purpose and structure
Understanding how to keep a scene interesting is a crucial skill for writing a novel or screenplay. Scenes are the basic building blocks of a chapter or act. Read on for tips on how to write a scene, plus analysis of story scene examples What is a scene exactly? The word scene broadly mean...
March 4th, 2024
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Fantasy book writing: 7 tips for captivating high fantasy
The fantasy genre endures for many reasons. It transports us to other worlds, stimulating the imagination. It draws on powerful archetypes and symbols. Fantasy is part of the larger category of speculative fiction, and is a massive genre. Read 7 tips for writing captivating high fantasy: Why ...
February 26th, 2024
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Comedic writing: How to write a funny story
Funny, comedic writing is hard. Senses of humor vary in what people find amusing. Read a guide to how to write a funny story. Explore types of humor and comedy genres, humor writing tips from stand-up and comedy icons, and examples of different types of comedy writing. Bear in mind that these f...
February 11th, 2024
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How to write your life story: 7 tips to start
Aspiring autobiographers often mail us asking, 'how can I write my own personal story?' How can I craft a compelling narrative?' It can seem like a daunting task writing and researching your life experiences. It can be a challenging writing project, but a valuable and creative one. It's a...
February 4th, 2024
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How to describe clothing in a story (with examples)
The clothes a person wears tells us many things: their status in life, for example, or their cultural affiliation or identity. They can tell us what era they live in, and even a person's current state of mind or intent. Understanding how to describe clothing in a story well will help y...
January 29th, 2024
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5 ways to start a story: Choosing a bold beginning
Great authors show us there are many ways to start a story. You could begin a novel with a narrator/character introducing himself, like Salinger's Holden Caufield or Dickens' David Copperfield. Or you could begin in the thick of action, as Ray Bradbury's does in his classic novel, Fahrenhei...
January 21st, 2024
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Decoding the Hero's Journey
Whether you're a fan of mythology or simply interested in the art of storytelling, let's delve into the world of the Hero's Journey. What is the Hero's Journey or the monomyth? The Hero’s Journey is a widely recognised pattern of storytelling and is essentially a circular storytelling ...
January 15th, 2024
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Top blog posts for 2023
1. Writing productivity hacks The word ‘productivity’ sounds dry and technical, like something that belongs in a boardroom. Yet writing productivity – being able to create with the least possible stress and struggle – is what divides prolific from occasional authors. This post takes a look a...
December 17th, 2023
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Fate deals the cards: a review and interview with romance writer Romy Sommer
Like taking a trip to Italy Reading Romy Sommer’s seventh romance novel, My Fake Italian Marriage, is like taking a trip to Italy. It’s a novel richly redolent of the landscape, food, smells and sensibilities of Tuscany, around the hilltop medieval town of Montalcino. The novel is set on an ...
December 10th, 2023
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Making dialogue sound natural
Whether you’re writing a novel or a short story, you are going to want to make your dialogue natural and true to real life, as it’s spoken in the real world. How do you go about achieving this, when ‘natural dialogue’ can be boring to read if you write it verbatim? As to why you should make y...
December 3rd, 2023
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Self-editing after NaNoWriMo
Self-editing is a vital part of any writing process. Having completed a write-a-thon such as NaNoWriMo, you may have a shiny new manuscript on your hands if you’ve gone the distance. Now you need to start self-editing your manuscript. You might want to call in a professional editor at some point...
November 27th, 2023
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Writing my novel with the Now Novel process
In the following months I'll be blogging about my own novel writing journey using the Now Novel process, from the highs to the lows, and how I manage to navigate them. For years, I have lived with the bare bones of a story I want to set partly on a resort in the North West part of South Afr...
November 12th, 2023
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