Esther Chilton

  • Markets For Writers

    My market for you this week is called ‘The Letters Page‘. It’s a correspondence-themed literary journal, which publishes hand-written letters. The journal is published three times a year. Each copy is free and downloadable as a PDF file. They’re looking for ‘stories, essays, poems, memoir, travelogue, reportage, conversation, criticism, speculation, illustration, deviation, and more. If…

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  • We moan that today’s children don’t read and then we moan when they clearly do…

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  • Monday Motivations

    My motivation for you this Monday comes in the form of an image of an underwater world. Let your imagination carry you away…

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  • Top Tip Of The Week

    Paragraphs Whether you’re writing an article, short story or novel, be careful of your paragraph lengths, especially your opening paragraph. If a reader is faced with a big block of words, it can be very off-putting as can page after page of long and lengthy paragraphs. It’s good to have a mixture as this aids…

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  • For my challenge this week, I’m going to give you the opening line to your story. There’s no word limit, so it can be as short or as long as you like. Here’s the line: John knew he’d gone too far this time – and there was no going back. Last week’s challenge was a…

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  • Markets For Writers

    Enormous thanks goes to Sacha Black for this week’s market. Wordhaus literary magazine is holding a writing competition with the theme of ‘Tipping Point’. Winners will have the opportunity of being featured in Wordhaus magazine and on TheWritePractice.com. Sign ups for participation in the competition close Friday, May 15 so you’ll need to get moving.…

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  • If in doubt, write the first thing that comes to mind:

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  • Monday Motivations

    If you’re struggling to come up with themes/ideas/titles for a fiction story, here are some words to help inspire you: The Island Survival The Rendezvous Tornado The Secret The Brotherhood Battle Zone Summer Rain Drama Queen Confession

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  • Top Tip Of The Week

    Cringeworthy Cliches Using too many cliches in a story will annoy your reader. An editor/judge wants to read something fresh. He doesn’t want to read that Mabel was feeling sick as a parrot, or that she made it to the bathroom in the nick of time. Nor does he want to know that she lost…

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  • For my challenge this week, I’m going to give you a random line, which must be included somewhere in your story. There’s no word limit, so it can be as short or as long as you like. Here’s the line: I can’t believe I’m actually going to do this, I thought. For last week’s challenge,…

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