Ready, Set, Write: 9 Insider Secrets to Writing and Finishing Your Short Story

8 Techniques To Up The Drama Factor In Your Short Stories

---

You'll learn plenty of powerful brainstorming techniques designed to practically write every article for you. In this course you'll learn how to develop the skills of a travel writer. You'll learn how to translate what is seen, heard, tasted, touched, smelled and felt intuitively and physically into publishable articles and books. You'll understand the writing styles and methods needed to sell material in today's competitive market including the how-to's of technical aspects of lead paragraphs, descriptive passages and the uses of interviews, quotes and facts.

By the end of the course, you'll have the ability to write for the travel market. Topics include popular styles and types of travel writing that are the friendliest to new writers. Other topics of the workshop include how to write query letters, how to produce articles, essays and books, trends in types of articles and books, grammar and writing skills refreshers, and marketing information.

Write and Publish Your Nonfiction Book. One of the great things about nonfiction book writing is that you're 10 times more likely to get published than you'd be if you wrote fiction. Whether you dream of becoming a full-time author, writing books to advance your career, or penning your memoir or family history, this fun and information-packed course will teach you how to plan, research, write, edit, and publish your masterpiece.

Write Your Life Story. Have you thought about writing your story, sharing life-altering events? Does your family really know about their heritage? If you've ever thought about writing your life story, now is the time. You will have the satisfaction of telling history your way. You may even find a lucrative market for your story, just like the authors of the bestselling Rocket Boys and Angela's Ashes. This course walks you step-by-step through the process of writing your life story.

It's a story only you can tell. Join author and writing mentor Steve Alcorn and discover what you need to know to write for children.

If you're a beginning writer, this course will help you transform your book idea into a finished product that could potentially land in the hands of an editor or agent. And if you're already a successful writer, this course will help you explore new opportunities and markets for your work.

1. To win, you must LOVE the book you're writing

You'll explore the changing world of children's literature and understand the various formats, including picture books, chapter books, middle grade or young adult novels. You'll get insights from publishing professionals to gain a better understanding of the needs of today's market. You'll receive valuable tips about creating your manuscript, and even practice writing a query letter to submit to a publisher.

Writing the Fantasy Novel. First off, you'll learn what separates fantasy fiction from other types of fiction.

You'll also try out an in-depth world-building exercise, which will help you create a system of magic as well as the different species that will live the world you're developing. We'll also talk about creating characters, and you'll learn how to populate your world with unique, compelling, and interesting people. We'll spend some time talking about the nuts and bolts of writing a fantasy novel, too.

You'll learn how to outline your book if you even decide to outline! We'll look at examples from other authors to show that writing is as individual as each person, and that there is no right way to write your book. We'll talk about how to revise and edit so that when you complete it, your book will be essentially a finished product. You'll also learn a little bit about publishing your book, including the differences between self-publishing and traditional publishing, and you'll decide which type will work better for you.

Finally, I'll share some tips about how to stay motivated and actually complete your novel—because, after all, writing is hard work! But with the tools you'll gain in this course, you'll be ready to tackle your first fantasy novel. Writing Young Adult Fiction. From Harry Potter to Twilight, young adult fiction is one of the hottest genres for today's novels.

Teens and adults alike have discovered the excitement and passion of these stories, and publishers are hungry for more. If you're eager to break into this market, this course provides you with the recipe for creating your own successful young adult story and shows you how to get it published.

Building Writing skills Research Methods for Writers. Learn how to efficiently and effectively conduct research for any writing project: Modern research techniques are boundless.

The trick is to know where to look and what to look for. You'll take a virtual guided tour of the library and how to maximize its precious resources, and you'll discover how to access public records, conduct successful Internet searches, and explore other similar treasure troves of information. Personal interviews, public reports, surveys and polls, and historical research are introduced and dissected. A special lesson on Guerilla Research reveals secrets for the undercover researcher.

As a plus, detailed instructions are offered for getting organized before embarking on research and getting the most out of information once it's gathered. We'll cover everything you need to know about journaling, including a seven-step process that will ease you into writing a journal, even if you've never journaled before. You'll get detailed instructions on developing, decorating, and customizing your journal, and you'll learn exciting new ways to express yourself and develop your creativity.

You'll find out how you can use your journal to explore your thoughts, feelings, and values, and you'll learn how to use your journal to support you as you develop true emotional well-being. You'll also understand how journaling can ease the stress of unwanted change throughout the course of your life. You'll even discover how journaling can help you choose the best career for you or advance in your current career.

The Keys to Effective Editing.

Ask any published writer and you will hear that a good editor is not just helpful, but essential. If you aspire to be an editor, this copyediting course will teach you the fundamentals of top-notch editing for both fiction and nonfiction. If you're already working as an editor, you'll not only brush up on your skills, but will also learn about recent advances in your chosen profession.

If you're a writer, you will learn essential self-editing tools to give your manuscripts the professional look that publishers like to see. From the language of editing to grammar, punctuation, and syntax to the all-important relationships between editor, author, and publisher, every facet of editing will be explored in this copyeditor course. Online editing is gaining popularity; its complexities will be unraveled and its advantages and pitfalls explored.

Can you make a living as an editor? Tips and resources for finding work will be addressed at length. When you finish with this course, you will feel confident enough to tackle even the most complex of manuscripts. Creativity Training for Writers. Who doesn't know the fear of the blank page? How can we transform our visions into the written word? Is it really possible to become a terrific writer? You'll find the answer to these and more of your questions in Writeriffic.

In this high-energy class you'll learn lots of tricks from the published writer's toolbox. Whether you're at work now or hoping to write a novel, a nonfiction book, a memoir, short stories or articles, Writeriffic liberates the imaginative, inventive bolts of genius that are inside everyone. If you've ever dreamed of hearing your writer's voice and writing what's in your heart and head, this class will make it happen.

Writer's Digest Magazine

If your goal is to become a published freelance writer of fiction or nonfiction for books or magazines, this comprehensive course will help you guide your work directly into the hands of an editor and onto the shelves of your favorite stores. Your success in the writing game will be determined by the amount of credibility publishers attach to you and your work.

If you have credibility, getting your manuscript published will no longer be a dream. Short stories that drag on with verbose sentences and excessive description tend to fall flat. Make readers work for it. Make readers work a little to put the pieces together and see the big picture. Drop hints that allude to backstory, that foreshadow endings, that boost characterization. Engaging insinuations can make for strong storytelling. Start close to the end. If the ending of your short story is the moment of greatest drama and suspense, start as close to that center of gravity as possible—then let it pull the rest of your story inevitably inward.

Jazz up the conflict in dialogue. Subtle conflict can be just as powerful as conflict involving foul language and spittle. Use dialogue to showcase friction, misunderstanding, or thwarted desires, and your story will be full of energy. How does death factor into your short story? When characters operate with a sense of destiny or fate—or when they look back and feel fated to have come to their present predicament—the story will have more innate gravity and importance aka drama.

7 Things That Will Doom Your Novel (& How to Avoid Them)

Do your characters tempt fate? You may like to take your time when you write a short story , gazing off into space, getting up and coming back to your work later on, etc. Try to write your story in one sitting. Or give yourself a time limit and try to write as much as you can as fast as you can. Taking this approach can give your story a spark of drama and lots of forward momentum. Let the fire that compels you to write burn as hot and fast as possible when you first sit down to draft your story.

Writers differ in their opinions of the revision process. Other writers embrace the process and consider it an act of strengthening, polishing, and ultimately making their novel the best it can be. But whichever camp you fall into, revision is an essential part of the novel-writing process, and one that every writer must undertake. In Revision and Self-Editing for Publication which will be re-released as a second edition with brand new material in December author James Scott Bell gives you four ways to revise as you write. Revise Your Previous Pages Look at what you wrote the day before or during your last writing stint , and do a quick edit.

This practice puts you back into the flow of your story and gets you ready to write the new material. I like to print out a hard copy of pages and mark them up. Of course, you can do all this on the computer screen. I just find that the act of reading physical pages more closely mimics what a reader will be doing, and I catch more things this way. The way the sentences flow.

I want to make sure what I wanted to convey has actually happened on the page. After 20, words you stop, take a day off, then read what you have. By this time your story engine should be running. You then take some time to make sure you like the characters and the direction. This is a good point to make your lead characters richer by adding background whether you include this for the readers or not , behaviors, quirks, strengths, flaws, and tags speech, dress, etc.

You can also make a decision about the tone and feel of your novel. It may want to take on a different emphasis than what you had planned. A better novel may be asking to be released. A lawyer discovers his brother, whom he thought to be dead, is alive. They get together and learn how different their paths have been. Gradually, my lead character uncovers disquieting secrets about his brother and finds himself in danger. I wrote the first 20, words with a plan in mind, to get the characters to a certain point and then begin a series of tense chases.

When I did my step back, I felt there was something missing from the book. During this step-back period of a week or so, I thought about the book and wrote a free association letter to myself each day see tip 3 listed below. One day I woke up knowing what was wrong. There would still be plenty of suspense, but it needed to pad up in soft socks, not steel-toed boots. When I went back to the first draft, I felt the material and I were connected in a much better, fuller way. Keep a Journal The free-form journal is a great way to record notes for yourself as you go.

• Sea Monkeys: A Memory Book
• Las estepas de España y su vegetación (Spanish Edition)
• Stratégies et campagnes électorales en Grande-Bretagne et aux Etats-Unis (Psychologie Politique) (French Edition)
• Islam et pouvoir : Les finalités de la Charia et la légitimité du pouvoir (French Edition)
• Beads And Beadwork Of The American Indians
• Sexy Swinging and Swapping Stories – Volume Five - An Xcite Books Collection