fiction
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Page Numbers! With more and more publications accepting submissions by e-mail, it’s easy to get out of the habit of adding page numbers to your work but it’s always useful to include them. The editor may wish to print out a copy of your work. If the pages are numbered, he/she can clearly see the…
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A gentle ease-in – or not?! I’m sure most of you will know just what I mean by it taking a week after a holiday to get back into work mode. Though, work often has other ideas! ‘The Writers Bureau’ is always busy so I have a lot of catching up to do there so…
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My tip for writers this week is to read, read and read. This applies to magazines and books. Not only are they entertaining, they can help you in your own writing including, how to structure paragraphs, setting passages of speech out, as well as grammar and punctuation issues. It was while reading an Enid Blyton…
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For those of you living in the UK, you’ll be lucky if you escaped a good soaking this week. The heatwave of the summer seems a little distant but perhaps my writing exercise will help you to find that ray of sunshine: You have two themes to pick from: Holiday Heaven Holiday Hell You can…
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Headless Chicken! This and ‘two steps forward and three steps back’ are words which come to mind this week. As any self-employed person, or most employees for that matter, knows, it’s not easy trying to get up straight when you’re taking a week off. It’s half-term next week and I’ll be away (as will my…
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Three dots is plenty! My top tips have included advice on not overdoing exclamation marks as well as dashes. Now it’s the turn of the three dots… An example of when this is used is where a character’s words trail off in speech e.g.: “I need some time to think about it…I’ll let you know…”…
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My writing exercise for your this week is to write a short story in the form of e-mails. Who is e-mailing who and about what is up to you. Two old school friends could be parted by distance but stay in touch via e-mail. Perhaps something happens to one of them, or there could be…
Esther Chilton 