What’s the Most Important Part of Your Novel?

Does your first chapter make a promise to readers? Do you live up to it? #WritersIssues

Writing your first novel-Some things you should know's avatarWriting your first novel-Things you should know

1e7cba28f25210164154825f3d16c176It’s the beginning and more specifically the first sentence, then paragraph, then page, then chapter. You have to grab your reader the minute they pick up your novel.

When you are ready to submit your work to an agent, one thing you will notice is they don’t want your complete work. They only want the first few pages, or some may ask for a couple of chapters. Don’t be bold and overconfident sending them the entire thing.

They probably will toss it to the side for your failure to follow instructions. If they do read, they won’t get very far if the first few pages aren’t compelling enough to draw them in (which was the part they wanted to see in the first place).

Agents as a rule, don’t want to see the entire manuscript until they know you can write a compelling story. You have to make them want to…

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Becomming a Better Fiction Writing using Passive Learning

Excellent post! 😉

Jed Herne's avatarJed Herne: Writer

The single best way to improve your creative writing is to do lots of creative writing.

However, it can be hard to make time to write short stories, poems or even novels. That’s why you should include as much writing-related passive learning into your day as possible.

Passive learning is essential learning to do a task by performing other similar (yet not identical) tasks. For creative writing, passive learning is a bit like sneaking vegetables into a brownie – it won’t feel like you’re writing fiction, yet your fiction writing will improve.

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Writing is Easier When I don’t have Time for It

Steven Capps's avatarBard & Books

Hey all, I have some updates before we get into the blog post. First, is that I am finally done teaching summer school which means I will have more time to get out posts on our regular weekly schedule rather than once ever two weeks. Number two, is that we are past June 30th which means it is time for our Writers Toolkit giveaway. I am going to do the drawing tomorrow morning and contact the winner. Once everything is confirmed, I’ll release their identity here in a future post.

The only other bit of news is that I will be gone from July 15th until the 29th for military training. Since this is only two weeks, I already have a blog post ready to go and thus shouldn’t be much of a bump in our schedule. I hope everyone is having an awesome day, and thanks for stopping in!

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Filter Words and Phrases to Avoid in Writing Fiction…

Chris The Story Reading Ape's avatarChris The Story Reading Ape's Blog

Filter words act like a veil between the reader and the character

by Kathy Steinemann  on Anne R. Allen site:

This article provides a list of writing filters, with practical examples of how to replace them. You’ll also find exercises that can double as story prompts.

All words exist for a reason. Use them wisely to create engaging narrative.

Why the fuss?

Filter words form a barrier that distances readers from a story.

Bertie felt the warm sand between her toes as she walked.

Bertie’s experience is relayed secondhand. When word economy is critical, this approach works. However, wouldn’t you rather become so involved that you almost feel it yourself?

With a few tweaks, we can strengthen the sentence.

The sand trickled between Bertie’s toes, radiating warmth with every step she took.

Strong verbs, trickled and radiating, amplify the sensory impact.

Five senses? Six? Twelve?

Most people can name…

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