blogging
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In this second part of my weekly series on how to hook your reader’s interest in your story straight away, I focus on the shock factor and how it instantly grips your reader, making her sit up and take notice. She’ll feel compelled to read on and find out what on earth is going to…
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Just Do It! This week’s tip is written with a mixture of sadness but also with a sense of motivation. The sadness part relates to me having to have my beloved 18 year-old cat put to sleep this morning. It doesn’t seem five minutes ago that she arrived here, a cute bundle of ginger fluff.…
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My themed weekly writing challenge stumped a few last week (the themes were Grotto, Hospital or Isolation) but for others, it clearly inspired. You can read their wonderful pieces below. Now onto this week and yes, it’s J, K and L and the themes for these letters are: Job, Kill and Love. For some inspiration on what you…
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Fish Publishing and their annual competitions is the market I’m bringing you this week. Fish Publishing have been running competitions since 1994 and their aim is to encourage new writers. They run four different annual competitions: Fish Short Story Prize Fish Flash Fiction Prize Fish Poetry Prize Fish Short Memoir Prize Each competition has a…
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Now here’s a tempting one:
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A number of you contacted me to say how much you enjoyed my ‘ABC Of Short Story Ideas’ and found it useful in helping you to come up with story ideas of your own. With that in mind, I thought I’d stick with fiction and start a new weekly series, ‘Fabulous First Few Words‘. As…
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A Cracking Christmas Calling! Yes, I know it’s the end of August and you don’t really want to be thinking about Christmas just yet, despite many of the stores clearly believing you should be but now is the time to be sending your Christmas stories and articles out. It’s no good waiting until December. Magazines…
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Last week, you had the option of writing a story or poem about ‘darkness’, an ’emergency’ or ‘freedom’. Well, the ‘darkness’ theme certainly got you thinking. Some fantastic stories are published below. So, this week, we move on to ‘G, H and I‘. My themes for your stories and poems are ‘Grotto‘, ‘Hospital‘ and ‘Isolation‘. To…
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This week’s market is an update on ‘The Global Short Story Competition‘. On my ‘Markets For Writers’ page, I detailed it as a monthly competition inviting stories of up to 2000 words on any subject but on checking the website, I’ve noticed it has recently changed to a quarterly competition. It’s still worth entering; after…
Esther Chilton 