fiction
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I don’t know about you, but this time yesterday, the working wasn’t going well and I was ready to a) hurl my laptop across the room b) burst into tears or c) both. Thankfully today things have gone smoothly (so far) and I feel like I’m getting somewhere. My market for your this week is…
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My tip this week applies to all aspiring writers and that’s to never give up. It can be very disheartening to receive rejection letter after rejection letter or not to hear back at all – I know, I’ve been there. But I kept going, researching markets, reading others’ work, building on my punctuation and grammar…
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The words ‘there just aren’t enough hours in the day’ are certainly on the tip of my lips this week but that seems to be the pace of life these days. Though, I have a job I love and a great family so I really shouldn’t moan. For the writers amongst you, how is all…
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In my blog, I’ve covered various ideas and suggestions for coming up with short story ideas. One fun and excellent way, is to have a list of items and those items have to fit in somewhere in your story. Here’s five items for you: Yellow War Dolly Cardigan Cakes Give and it an go and…
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Are you entering a short story competition and can’t think what to write about? Perhaps you want a story that will stand out and so you’re looking for that unusual hook. A story in diary form can work very well. As diary entries are in the first person, the reader gains an intimate insight into…
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My feet literally aren’t touching the ground this week. I’ve deadlines galore and the tutoring is always busy. I’m also undergoing a test for a new role so while it’s hectic, it’s also very exciting. My market for you this week is ‘Crystal Magazine’. It’s a small press publication aimed at new and established writers.…
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My name is? It’s so easy to fall into the trap of changing a character’s name half way through a story. For example, your story might start off being about a boy called Joshua only for him to morph into a character called Jason towards the end of the story. This shows that you’ve been…
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Not many of us have the luxury of becoming a full-time writer as soon as we start out. Instead, it’s a case of snatching hours and minutes here and there in between the day job and all that life throws at us. The same can be said for where we write. A lot of writing…
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My writing week is going well, with several submissions sent out and an article published in The Guardian at the weekend. I recently covered this as a market (see Markets For Freelancers) so if you’d like to see an example of the type of piece they publish, you can find my article if you click on the…
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Cringeworthy Clichés Building on my advice about short story endings yesterday, comes another tip about short story writing and that’s to watch your use of clichés. Over-used clichés such as, ‘Her skin was as white as snow’, ‘He looked outside and saw it was raining cats and dogs’ and ‘She looked as light as a…
Esther Chilton 