10 Tips and Tricks to Get Writing Inspiration Anywhere and Anytime – by Lucia Tang…

Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog

on Digital Pubbing:

Writers aren’t prophets. No matter how hard we wish, we can’t just take dictation from some divine voice in our ears — we’re supposed to find our own inspiration. But when you’re on the run from a deadline, in a fight with a chapter, or just sick of wishing the book in your head would magically appear on your laptop, finding inspiration can feel like a DIY root canal.

Luckily, inspiration is everywhere! Whether you’re in the middle of a floundering project or at a complete loss for something to write, these ten tips and tricks will have you typing away in no time

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Why Do You Write? #authors #writers

Story Empire

Hi, SEers! Mae here with a simple—or maybe not so simple—question.

Why do you write?

What compels you to spend hours, days, weeks, months or more, crafting a single story? Why does the story form in your head to begin with? Is it birthed from characters who won’t leave you alone, or does it form as a plot with grayed out faces? Once you tell a tale, why do you go back to the drawing board and start another? Whatspursyou to create?

You may be familiar with a quote that runs along the lines of”if you’re a writer, your days are spent writing or thinking about writing.”

I know that’s true for me. Rarely does a day, pass when I’m not engaged in one or the other. I find it mind-boggling other people can walk around giving absolutely no thought to crafting fiction. For those of us who…

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Grieving A Writing Life

K.M. Allan

When you start out in the writing community, you’re learning, and part of that process is seeing those before you rise.

Just as you’re entering the query trenches, there are others being lifted out of them with agent representation and publishing deals, and you wait patiently for the day that person will be you.

Before you know it, years have gone by. You’ve been part of the writing community for a long time, helping those who are now the newbie you once were.

Experienced in the query trenches, you’ve seen it all, gotten every rejection type there is: the no answer, the form letter, the good but not good enough. You might have even hit that 100 rejections goal you’d heard other writers talk about but never thought you’d reach because your MS was too good. At least you thought so.

You might have rewritten it since those lofty…

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Suspension of Disbelief

Story Empire

Hi, gang. Craig with you once again to talk about something directly related to the kind of fiction I write. It’s called the suspension of disbelief.

Most of you’ve heard of this, but likely glanced off it and didn’t give it much thought. Specifically, it means that to enjoy the story a reader is going to have to give control to the author and give up the idea that certain things cannot happen in the real world. (Hint: this isn’t the real world.)

You know by now I always talk about film because more people understand what I’m referring to. Think of all the superhero films that have taken over Hollywood in the last few years. To enjoy them, people have to suspend disbelief. Superman flies, get over it. People can’t fall twenty stories, then catch a flagpole with one hand either.

You can see how this applies to science…

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How to Use Prologues, Part 4, Does Your Story Need a Prologue?

Story Empire

Image courtesy of Tumisu via Pixabay

Hi SErs! It’s a day of Harmony here at Story Empire 🙂 Today, I’d like to talk about whether or not your story needs a prologue. Here’s a link to the previous post on Prologue Dos and Don’ts

So far in this post series we’ve looked at what a prologue is and isn’t and also what to do and not to do when using a prologue. How, you might ask, do you decide whether or not you need a prologue in the first place?

Why Do You Need a Prologue?

1. A well-written prologue can add power to your main narrative
2. If you want to foreshadow events to come, a prologue will help you to do that to good effect
3. If you want to let your reader be privy to information the characters are unaware of, then a prologue will be a useful tool

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Writing Real Dialogue in Fiction

Story Empire

Greetings, SE’ers! Beem Weeks here with you again. Today, I am going to share my thoughts on character dialogue in fiction. 

Dialogue. It can make or break a story. Dialogue is the lines your characters speak aloud in a written story. They differ from the narrative voice in that even the peripheral characters are given a voice through dialogue. The narrative voice is telling your story, but your characters, if they are to become real to readers, must speak. And they must be authentic when speaking.

For the most part, the narrator will usually be a consistent voice. But your characters are each different. Some may be sweet and kind and full of empathy, while others might be indifferent, aloof, apathetic to the struggles of those around him or her. Still others might be hardboiled and angry—or just plain mean. A bully and his or her victim are going to…

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Tips For Rewriting A Finished Manuscript

K.M. Allan

If you’ve been reading my blog posts since last year, you’ll know I spent most of it rewriting my work in progress.

Helpful advice from beta readers pointed out that I hadn’t gotten it completely right and that I needed to make major changes to get everything to work. This took me six months, and it was for the better, although it didn’t feel like it at certain times.

As a writer, I’d gone through a huge learning curve and it gave me the confidence to tackle anything. That anything was my next WIP, the manuscript for the fourth and final book in my Blackbirch series, which I’d completed in 2017.

This MS didn’t need major changes to the story. It had already been through one round of alpha reading, so I knew it did work and that all it needed was a different ending, which I’d already plotted…

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Story Development and Execution Part 7: Pacing, Tension, and Suspense

Story Empire

Ciao, SEers. Today is part seven: pacing, tension, and suspense. Craig has written a couple of great posts on tension (one and two), and I have a post on structure that flirts with the concept of pacing. This post will deal with how to use these elements to advance the story.

One technique that gets readers invested immediately and brings tension to the forefront is to start with a loss. It doesn’t have to be a death, though that is an extreme loss. It can be anything that puts the character in a deficit from his status quo. He got fired. His wife left him. His dog ran away. His apartment building is turning into condos and he can’t afford to buy one. He broke his leg the day before the rodeo. Any loss is a loss. The kind of loss helps establish genre. What he does…

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How to Write More – by Melissa Donovan…

Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog

on Writing Forward:

Productivity: it’s all been said and done. In fact, you could spend more time learning how to be productive than actually being productive.

For us creative types, productivity can be a fleeting thing. We experience highs (a whole month packed with inspiration) and lows (three more months fraught with the ever-annoying writer’s block).

It can be frustrating. But creative writing doesn’t have to be a fair-weather hobby. Many successful authors have harnessed creativity, reined it in, and turned it into a full-time profession. So we know it can be done.

That doesn’t mean it’s easy.

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A Cheat Sheet on Body Language for Writers

Story Empire

Pixabay image

Hi SEers. John with you today.

As a wrap-up to the subject of gestures (or beats) to convey non-verbal communication, I found a great cheat sheet for writers on body language. The cheat sheet is below the text and was developed by ArchetypeWriting.com.

The cheat sheet can be used in developing characterizations beyond having to explain just how your character is feeling. I hope you find this cheat sheet useful and perhaps dig deeper into the subject of body language.

I became more confident in using beats to convey my character’s emotions in looking into this subject. However, I got a comment from a beta reader on my next book that maybe I went a little too overboard on the beats. There is always a warning on using any of the writing tools. The writer should use moderation with all of them.

How about you? Let us hear…

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