Fiction Dialogue 201

Story Empire

Ciao, SEers! My first post for Story Empire was called Fiction Dialogue 101, and it was actually our site’s inaugural post… all the way back on August 31, 2016.

I thought it was time for the next class, so welcome to Fiction Dialogue 201, where the concepts are slightly more advanced, but I promise you they’re just as easy to master.

Eliminate Fillers

Often when we speak, we’re unprepared to complete our thoughts. So we begin our sentences with filler words or even meaningless syllables while our brain prepares a cogent argument or even a simple greeting. In person, it’s easy to tune these fillers out. But in fiction, they are beacons that stand out as crutch words, placeholders, sloppy writing, or (God forbid) padding to increase our word count. Unless you have a character who stammers or specifically uses a crutch filler as his signature phrase, these can…

View original post 936 more words

Advertisement

Entice – Tuesday Use It In A Sentence #tuesdayuseitinasentence

Determined to capture the notoriously elusive jewel thief, they devised an elaborate trap using a famous gem as bait to entice him. Once it was set, they hid and waited anxiously for him to arrive.

This post is part of the Tuesday Use It In A Sentence prompt, “entice”:

https://stephaniecolpron.wordpress.com/2021/04/27/tuesdayuseitinasentence-entice/

How to Write Better Stories – by Melissa Donovan…

Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog

on Writing Forward:

You know that feeling you get when you read a novel and become completely lost in it? You can’t put it down, so you lose track of time. When you finally finish, you wish it would just keep going.

Isn’t that the kind of story you want to write?

Over the past year, I’ve read only a few books that I couldn’t put down. Unfortunately, several of the books I started to read didn’t keep my interest past the first few chapters. There was a time when I forced myself to finish every book I started, no matter how boring it was. But I don’t have time for that anymore. My book pile is big and my reading list is long, so if I’m not compelled by the time the second act gets underway, I move on and find something more intriguing.

As a reader, I’m on…

View original post 15 more words

Hello, Kindle Vella

Nicholas C. Rossis

Have you heard the news? Amazon just announced the Kindle Vella system. This is sort of “Wattpad on Amazon,” as a quick recap will show you:

• You publish your book, one chapter (“episode”) at a time. Episodes are between 600-5,000 words long.
• Readers find your story in the Kindle Vella store on Amazon.com and in the Kindle app on iOS. They can start reading using their Tokens.
• Readers can buy Tokens for as little as $1.99 (for 200 Tokens).
• To give readers a chance to check out a story, they can read the first three episodes of every story for free.
• To unlock later episodes, readers must purchase and redeem Tokens. The number of Tokens needed to unlock an episode is determined by the episode’s word count at the rate of one token per 100 words. For example, it takes six Tokens to unlock a 638-word episode.
• Authors earn…

View original post 337 more words

ANIMALS AND WRITING

Story Empire

Hi SEers! Denise here to talk about animals and writing.

When I was young, I was drawn to books about animals. A few that have stayed with me are “Where the Red Fern Grows” by Wilson Rawls, “Charlotte’s Web” by E.B White, and “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” by Beatrix Potter.

As an adult, I’ve read “Call of the Wild” by Jack London, “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” by Richard Bach, and “All Creatures Great and Small” by James Herriot. I’m adding “Pet Sematary” by Stephen King as an example of what I don’t like in a story with a pet.

Do you have some favorite animal stories?

Animals are a part of our lives. Even if we don’t own pets, we will certainly run into one along the way. Birds can be outside the window or a cat cuddled on your lap, their tail twitching, watching that bird. On a walk…

View original post 549 more words

Motivational Tricks To Keep You Working On Your Manuscript

K.M. Allan

When you set out to write a novel, you quickly learn that it takes a lot of drafts.

There’s the first draft, which is laying down the story. The second works out what the story is missing, and every draft after is refining until it becomes the finished book.

How many drafts that takes depends on you as a writer and your process. For my current work in progress, I’m on draft eight, and this draft is the third different draft I’ve worked on this year alone. That’s a lot of reading the same sentences repeatedly.

When you’re in that type of endless editing process, it’s easy to lose motivation, and I have—plenty of times. As I move through this current draft and hope there’s only one more to go, these motivational tricks are helping to keep me on track.

Motivational Tricks To Keep You Working On Your…

View original post 1,135 more words

Happy Earth Day #EarthDay

Jeanne Owens, author

Happy Earth Day!

(images found on Pinterest)

View original post

10 Effective Ways to Avoid Distraction While You Write

Nicholas C. Rossis

As writers, we’ve all struggled with people, thoughts, and objects constantly distracting us while writing. In my case, it’s an energetic 5-year-old who loves interrupting me to show me stuff like the dragon egg she painted as soon as I sit down to write.However, there are plenty of other interruptions in our lives.

Thankfully, there are as many ways through which you can reduce and even eliminate these distractions to make an environment for yourself to maintain a steady focus on the writing task at hand. Here are ten effective ways to ward off any distractions while you write.

Turn off notifications

Screens are distracting. And so are the constant pings from our phones that we’re habituated to respond to. Blocking out any distractions such as your phone or Chrome’s notifications sounds is important whether you’re typing on your laptop or writing on paper. If youturn off Chrome notifications

View original post 737 more words

Bibliophile humor

bluebird of bitterness

View original post

14 Types of Creative Writing – by Melissa Donovan…

Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog

on Writing Forward:

When we talk about creative writing, fiction and poetry often take the spotlight, but there are many other types of creative writing that we can explore.

Most writers develop a preference for one form (and genre) above all others. This can be a good thing, because you can specialize in your form and genre and become quite proficient. However, occasionally working with other types of writing is beneficial. It prevents your work from becoming stale and overladen with form- or genre-specific clichés, and it’s a good way to acquire a variety of techniques that are uncommon in your preferred form and genre but that can be used to enhance it.

Let’s look at some different types of creative writing. As you read through the list, note the types of writing you’ve experimented with and the types you’d like to try.

Continue reading HERE

View original post