fiction
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A couple of years ago, I wrote a tips piece for The Writers’ Bureau’s on-line magazine, ‘E-Zee Writer’ about how to grab your readers’ attention in the opening to your story: http://www.writersbureau.com/e-zee-writer/september-2011/page4.htm Having hooked that interest, you need to keep it there and then finish the story on a high, leaving readers feeling as if…
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A New Term It’s the first day of the school term and so I’ve had the house to myself once more and plenty of opportunity to start the big catch up. I’m concentrating on the tutoring work first as that has priority, though somehow I’ve managed to more or less stay on top of things…
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By Post or E-mail? Even though we live in an electronic age where more and more publications are accepting work by e-mail, some still prefer postal submissions, especially from someone writing for them for the first time. So make sure you research this carefully. If a magazine only accepts work by post, don’t think you…
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Yesterday, in my blog, I gave details of a fantastic flash fiction competition, ‘Flash 500’. Winning a flash fiction competition can give you a tremendous boost and spur you on to write for other publications and enter other competitions. That’s exactly what happened to me. The following story is the first piece of flash fiction…
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After a bank holiday at the beginning of the week, I keep having to remind myself which day of the week it is. It really feels like a Tuesday but as it’s already Wednesday, my deadlines are looming even closer. Though, school starts back next week so I should be able to catch up quite…
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Dramatic Dialogue In a short story, you need to hook your reader’s interest straight away. If your opening paragraph is too long or you waffle, you’ll lose his interest. Try opening your story with dialogue. It instantly makes your reader feel part of the story and privy to the conversation that’s taking place. Here are…
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The first two days of my writing week went very well; I managed to achieve a lot and have had an exciting work offer – more about this in time and then today, I feel as if I’m wading through treacle. We all have days like this, when no matter how hard we…
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Regular Research However you research your market, your research must be up-to-date. Reference books such as ‘The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook’ are very useful but they’re often collated months before they’re published. Magazines are changing all the time so the information may not be current. You may have a copy of a woman’s weekly that’s…
Esther Chilton 