tips for writers
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Take A Break Do you often feel frustrated when your short story doesn’t flow? Or perhaps you’re working on an article and the ideas and words won’t come. Maybe it’s a bigger project you’re working on, like a novel, but it’s just not coming together. Then is the time to take a break. Go for
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Banish the Bow! Last week my tip was how to open your short story and grab your reader’s attention straight away. This week my tip is about ending your short story: Don’t feel as though you have to tie your story up in a nice little bow. Many readers like a story with an open
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Almost there…here’s S, T and U: S is for Spy: The word ‘spy’ immediately conjures up an image of James Bond hurtling down a mountainside on skis or careering round corners in a fast car. Your story can involve that type of spy but think outside the box. A spy could also be a sister,
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Can’t think of a way to open your short story and to ensure you hook your reader? Shock them! It’s important to grab your reader’s interest in the first few paragraphs. It’s even better if you can do it in the first sentence. The shock factor is a great way of achieving this and for
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Moving on to the sixth part of my weekly series and it’s time to welcome P,Q and R: P is for Party: Most of us have had a party or been to one, be it a children’s party, housewarming party, leaving party etc. Perhaps your party or the one you attended was on the boring
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Lower not higher! What’s wrong with the following sentence?: “I’m going to the beach this weekend,” He said. Answer: the capital ‘H’ of ‘He’. It should be lowercase and not uppercase. A lot of writers make this mistake and it’s so easy to do. But when you write using ‘he’ or ‘she’, for that matter,
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This week, it’s on to M,N and O: M is for money: They say money is the root of all evil. Your story could centre around this theme and feature a character who will do anything for money. Perhaps he goes a step too far and gets his comeuppance. Or your story could be about
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Say no to head-hopping! Adding a character’s thoughts to a story can help the reader to connect with the character. You can do this for more than one character but don’t use more than one character’s thoughts in the same scene. If you constantly hop from one character’s thought to another, it can be very
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Bashing the background on the head! When you’re writing a short story, it’s easy to get sucked into telling the reader too much about your characters’ backgrounds. This slows the pace of the story down. The reader wants a story so it’s important to only include any background information that’s essential to the story. You
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This week, G, H, and I receive the short story treatment: G is for grotto: For many of us, the idea of a grotto conjures up a rosy cheeked Father Christmas sitting in his grotto, waiting to greet children and agree to their dreams of the latest toy or gadget. Now is the perfect time
Esther Chilton 