Looking to brush up your writing skills or learn a new trick or two? You've come to the right place! Check back weekly for helpful tips and articles that make your writing better.
One of my biggest struggles as an emerging writer was understanding the concept of a scene and how it differed from the overall events of the book. After all, if I plotted the beats* in my novel, wouldn’t each scene naturally fall into place?
Short answer: No.
If you rely only on your outline to establish the overall arc of your story, you’ll end up with a lot of transition… read more
People always ask writers where we get our ideas. Our answers are varied—conversations, song lyrics, witnessing an interaction between strangers on a bus, the particular shape and color of a piece of fresh fruit in a loved one’s hands, an old TV show barely remembered.
Life is full of sources of inspiration and tapping into that inspiration can take your writing to a new level. Those… read more
Queer is a huge spectrum and the umbrella gets larger as we humans find language for various aspects of gender identity, orientation, and ways of existing outside of the heteronormative majority. According to Statistics Canada, there are approximately 1 million folks in Canada who identify as LGBTQ+. That’s a lot of people who are looking to read about people like them. But reaching this… read more
Parents, does this sound familiar?
You’ve had a novel swirling around in your head for some time; characters form while you're driving in the car. Plot twists develop in the shower. Worlds and settings come to life while you prepare dinner. You sit down at your computer desk, or open your laptop and prepare to write.
Just as you type out a few words, your child appears beside… read more
This post is part two in a series.
In The Structure of Flash Fiction (part 1), we discussed how you can use flash fiction to help hone your story and covered the first part of flash fiction structure.
Here's what comes next:
Section 3:
The middle part of the story contains a few (maybe 4-6) sentences that show the attempted conflict resolution has failed.
… read more
Flash fiction is a very short story. How short depends on who is defining it. Some say less than 1500 words, some say 1000. Some flash fiction stories can be just a few words. For novel writers, thinking about your story this way can also help you focus on what matters.
Though these articles are about structure, it’s important to note that no two flash stories are alike. The more flash… read more
A lot of people write by the seat of their pants—that is, they rush headlong into writing a book without any sort of physical outline. That’s okay. Everyone’s writing process is different and if throwing yourself into a story without an outline works for you, there’s nothing wrong with that.
But if you’re ready to consider plotting your next novel, or if you’re partway through a book and… read more
If you talk to other writers about writer’s block, a fair number will say there’s no such thing. Writer’s block is just lack of planning; someone once told me. Another said writer’s block just means I’m not trying.
But if you’re not writing, you have writer’s block, and whether that’s caused by an uncomfortable chair, a lack of ideas, or fear of failure, the end result is the same—you’re… read more
Whether it's a magical fairy tale like “Cinderella” or a well-worn favorite such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), classic stories continue to inspire both readers and writers alike. Works that are in the public domain offer a multitude of opportunities for writers seeking inspiration. This can be seen in the numerous retellings of classic myths and fairy tales as well as the… read more
