inspiration
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A story written in the first person can be very effective in creating a sense of atmosphere and making your readers feel as if they are part of the story, seeing and experiencing everything along with that character. Take the following example: I looked at the garden, at the weeds weaving their way towards the
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Think outside the box Whether you’re entering a themed or open-themed writing competition, don’t write about the first thing that comes to mind. Jot down several ideas. The first few will probably be themes a lot of entrants will write about. Ignore these and let your mind push you forward and onto something a little
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Here’s part seven in my writing dialogue series. Here are parts one, two, three, four, five and six. Now for part seven: Use dialogue to break up big blocks of narrative text. It aids readability, as well as injecting pace into the story. ***
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Please welcome Laura Sansom to my Guest Writer Spot for the first time. She’s written a great story for us. Before you read her story, you might like to know a little bit about her: Laura is an aspiring writer whose projects has, and will continue to include poetry, article/ content writing, flash fiction and
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Stuck for something to write about? I often find a photo starts the creative juices flowing. Here’s one of an old ruined abbey. What happened there all those years ago? What about now? Could there be a ghost haunting the ruins? Or perhaps a homeless person stays there – what could their story be? Let
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Four years ago, I found myself wandering around outside The British Library, in London, trying to look casual, while out of the corner of my eye, looking for fellow bloggers, who were gathering for the first Annual Bloggers Bash. Could I see any? No. Perhaps I’d got the date wrong? Or maybe I was in
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Hospital Waiting Rooms, Horrendous Halls and Farm Parks How many times have you moaned about hours spent hanging round hospital waiting rooms as your appointment runs late? Take a notebook with you next time and put those wasted hours to good use. Or why not take/download a book and see what’s making it into the
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Make sure you’re up-to-date Whether you’re working on a short story, article or filler to send to a magazine, in order to ensure that you know exactly what the editor is looking for, you must analyse the publication carefully. An up-to-date copy is essential. It’s no good borrowing a two-year-old copy of one of Aunty
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Fabulous Photographs If you’re writing an article for a magazine, always make sure you have clear, high quality photographs to accompany it. These can often be a deciding factor in an editor accepting your article. Even if you have written an entertaining and informative piece, if you only have drab, grainy photos to accompany it,
Esther Chilton 