Category Archives: Writing Exercises
7 Tips for Better Proofreading
Proofreading is an important element of writing that never gets any credit. It’s never noticed when done properly, but when you don’t do it well, it can be the difference between a second read and getting tossed immediately out of the slush pile. Continue reading
Writing Exercise: Make Your Characters Take a Stand
If you write dramas, mysteries, or anything that requires complex human interaction, chances are, you are going to have to write about a disagreement. Continue reading
What Would You Be If You Were Not a Writer?
If you could change your writing career to something else, no matter what the obstacles, what would you change it to? Continue reading
Geronimo Stilton and the Art of Writing the Vacation Story
It’s the imperfect vacations and travels that are often memorable—and most often written about. Continue reading
Writing History, Great and Small
Though most people are not true history buffs, many do love the history of particular things. If you find an interesting way to present your topic, you may be able to work a book proposal right into a history publisher’s heart. Continue reading
Writing Exercise: Playing with Time, Mad Men Style
As a writer, if you are going to play with chronological order in a story, you must have a darn good reason for doing it, and you have to keep it all straight—in your own head and everyone else’s. Continue reading
What Makes for a Good Writing Class?
You have to do your homework to make sure you get the experience you want from a writing class. Continue reading
The “Pee-Pee Feeling” in Writing: Making Readers Squirm
It’s that feeling you get when you encounter something that makes you so embarrassed, or grossed out, or uncomfortable, or horrified, that you really just want to leave the room. Continue reading
Writing Home
They say to write what you know, so write a short story about your childhood home or hometown, even if you don’t live there anymore. Continue reading
Writing Dystopian Fiction: Rollerball Is The Hunger Games
There has been plenty of commentary about how The Hunger Games, the latest teen-focused dystopian book and film craze, isn’t necessarily a new idea, just a very good version of an old idea, and Rollerball is pretty solid proof. Continue reading
Friday Writing Exercise: Meet Mary Sue
Don’t be afraid to make your characters unattractive, or nasty at times, or less than perfect, or very different from you. What you are after is not perfection. What you are after is realism, complexity, motivation, believability. Continue reading
Friday Writing Exercise: Carrots and Sticks
When you really start writing for a living, as I do for at least part of the time, something happens. I hate to crush your dreams, but at some point it really does turn into work. Continue reading
Friday Writing Exercise: Make Your Characters Fight
If you are having trouble nailing down the finer aspects of a character, a good way to get to know her better is to make her have a fight with someone else. Continue reading
Friday Writing Exercise: Bad Endings
“There’s no crying in baseball!” “I loved you in The Wizard of Oz!” “Alice, you’re killing me!”* Yep, A League of Their Own is a great baseball movie. Nope, I am not through with sports writing yet. We aren’t writing … Continue reading
Friday Writing Exercise: Writing about Sports
Why are sports so popular in novels? For one thing, they have natural drama. There is inherent excitement, a winner and a loser, a struggle, and a dramatic outcome. Continue reading
Friday Writing Exercise: Are All Writers Neurotic?
Am I just a touch neurotic? Are all writers? Must they be, in order to be good at what they do—you know, that tortured artist thing? Continue reading
Friday Writing Exercise: One of Those Days…
Normally, I love writing these blogs, but today I ask for your patience. I have had a bad day. I have a headache (I get a lot of migraines), had a rotten day at the office (mostly because I screwed up some things that I shouldn’t have and I am notoriously hard on myself), and I’m crabby. Continue reading
Friday Writing Exercise: Blog Away!
You don’t have to have an actual blog to try this writing exercise. Write it on a napkin if need be. Continue reading
Wednesday Writing Exercise: Visualizing with Pinterest
One method I use for adding depth to the worlds I write about in my stories is to create a visual dictionary of sorts. Pinterest can help you do this. Continue reading
